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A review by savvylit
Satan Says by Sharon Olds
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
"Once you lose someone it is never exactly the same person who comes back."
Satan Says is divided into four sections: Daughter, Woman, Mother, & Journey. Olds' content is fully autobiographical, with her poems focusing on her own experiences during each phase of her life so far. Each poem is very confessional: Olds references childhood abuse, sexually explicit dalliances, and her simultaneously experienced joy & sorrow regarding her young children.
Satan Says, which was first published in 1980, was Sharon Olds' debut collection. I can only imagine how provocative and profound this collection must have seemed at that time. Reading these poems over forty years in the future, though, I found their content to be unsurprising and almost passé. Most of the poems in this collection, though very well-crafted, were not particularly memorable. I will make an exception for the titular poem, though, which I think is excellent and actually has stood the test of time.
Ultimately, I will fully admit that my boredom with most of this collection is primarily a me-problem. I have personally read so many poems like the ones in Satan Says at this point in my reading life. At the same time, I do fully recognize the significance of Olds doing what she did when she did. She was likely one of the first to put some of these Second Wave Feminist ideas onto the page.
Satan Says is divided into four sections: Daughter, Woman, Mother, & Journey. Olds' content is fully autobiographical, with her poems focusing on her own experiences during each phase of her life so far. Each poem is very confessional: Olds references childhood abuse, sexually explicit dalliances, and her simultaneously experienced joy & sorrow regarding her young children.
Satan Says, which was first published in 1980, was Sharon Olds' debut collection. I can only imagine how provocative and profound this collection must have seemed at that time. Reading these poems over forty years in the future, though, I found their content to be unsurprising and almost passé. Most of the poems in this collection, though very well-crafted, were not particularly memorable. I will make an exception for the titular poem, though, which I think is excellent and actually has stood the test of time.
Ultimately, I will fully admit that my boredom with most of this collection is primarily a me-problem. I have personally read so many poems like the ones in Satan Says at this point in my reading life. At the same time, I do fully recognize the significance of Olds doing what she did when she did. She was likely one of the first to put some of these Second Wave Feminist ideas onto the page.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence and Violence