The Victims, And The Clasp, By Sharon Olds - 2450 Words

Danielle Faulk K. Iovino 11 AP English Language and Composition June 8, 2015 In poems such as â€Å"The Victims†, â€Å"The Unborn†, and â€Å"The Clasp†, Sharon Olds demonstrates her ability to portray real life problems through generalized speech to show family problems that lead to unhappiness. Throughout these poems, she makes the reader empathize with her and feel as if the poem is speaking directly to them instead of it being just the situations that she has gone through. In order to achieve this, Olds uses an honest tone to portray her common theme of pain by aloneness, abuse and loss. Sharon Olds was born on November 19, 1942 in San Francisco, California. Although no specific events have been stated by Olds, her childhood has been characterized as one with much violence and abuse. One well known fact about her family is that Sharon’s father was an alcoholic, which contributed to the abuse that the family experienced. When Olds came of age, she attended Stanford University where she obtained her bachelor’s degree and later received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1972. Her â€Å"...greatest influences were Emily Dickinson, Muriel Rukeyser, Anne Sexton, and Robert Lowell† (Leston). Olds married in 1965 to a doctor who has never been named and is a mother to two children one of which was a miscarriage. Her other child , Gabriel Olds was born on March 24th, 1974, attended Yale University and went on to be an actor and writer (IMDb). After being married for thirty two years, Olds’Show MoreRelated Wounded Knee:The Ties of Religion and Vi olence Essay3113 Words   |  13 Pagesthese people†, and that â€Å"the manner of stopping it is to arrest those who have defied the agent’s orders† (WKPub 193). Agent A. T. Lea dismissed hunger as a source of unrest among the Sioux, and instead claimed that the unrest originated with the â€Å"old bucks . . . restless . . . idleness . . . a desire to regain their influence over the people† (WKPub 194). The increased military presence coincided with arrests of those performing the Ghost Dance on reservations in South Dakota, and interceptions