Sharon Olds is one of the foremost voices in contemporary poetry. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Stag’s Leap and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Strike Sparks, and author of numerous other collections, including Balladz (2022) and Odes, she is known for writing intensely personal, emotionally graphic poems marked by grace, chivalry, and precision. Born in 1942 in San Francisco, Olds grew up a “hellfire Calvinist” in Berkeley, California, attended Stanford University, and earned her PhD from Columbia University. She teaches in the graduate writing program at New York University.
Photograph by Hillery Stone.
WORKS THAT HAVE APPEARED IN NARRATIVE:
- What It Requires, poetry, in Fall 2023
- The Reader in Quarantine, poetry, in Spring 2024
- Reading Sebald and Other Poems, poetry, in Winter 2024
- Amherst Ballad Four, poetry, in Poems of the Week: 2020–2021
- Genesis and Other Poems, poetry, in Fall 2021
- Kunitzieform, poetry, in Winter 2019
- Nevada City, California, Aubade, poetry, in Spring 2019
- After Closing Up My Mother’s House and Other Poems, poetry, in Fall 2018
- September 2001, New York City, poetry, in Spring 2015