Sharon Olds: “Talking is a form of political action”

2023-11-10 22:41:39

That is what I have always felt when reading Sharon Olds (San Francisco, California, 1942), and it was what I experienced while talking with her in her office at New York University, where, at her 80 yearscaters to students who, like me, yearn for their master’s degree.

It was an ordinary Saturday for all those who were walking that day in the intense rain around the area. Washington Square. But not for me. I was going to see Sharon Olds. It was a beautiful talk we had.

We talked about the atrocity of the war that had just broken out between Israel and Hamas; of the beauty of the domestic, always so reviled by male critics; of creation, indifferent to the sexes, not to the sexism; of the privilege of being heard and the virtue of knowing how to listen; about what the personal is always poeticas well as political.

We do not mention, however, his numerous awards, among them the T. S. Eliot, el Pulitzer, el Wallace Stevens or the Joan Margarit, which he received from King Felipe in July. It’s Olds a humble and generous womana poet who narrates life, who sings it and celebrates it.

His poetry is always direct and very personal. Where does that ability of yours come from?

I think it is because I come from a family tradition marked by repression and religion, in which the most important things were not talked about. It’s not that I thought, “What am I not supposed to talk about?” Simply put, the things I was most interested in were outside much of the literature prior to my birth. And that left a whole area open to new poems, to literature itself. It was exciting and moving to think that I could do that instead of what I was supposed to do. Because I certainly wasn’t supposed to write the way I did…

And how should I write?

Oh, I don’t know, I really don’t know.

Because what did your parents expect from you?

Don’t know. They expected love, and I loved them. They expected an obedient daughter, and I was not. They were proud of the good grades they got at school, but they were traditional people. I don’t usually talk much about them, but I think it’s fair to say that they were traditional in the way they understood life and literature.

When did you decide you wanted to write? Did you always know that he would be a poet?

I always knew I wanted to make things, and once I learned to read and write, I wanted to build a little world on the page.

And was all of that somehow related to beauty?

Maybe… More with individual truth than with traditional beauty. Not necessarily something beautiful, but useful and true enough.

Do you think it is possible to capture the truth through language?

Not really. Perhaps it is possible for a person to construct a small model of truth according to himself. But I am not in touch with universal truths and voices. How faithful can language be to experience? Well, that’s different. We can touch reality, and language represents reality. Therefore, it is like a secret code, or not so secret, but it is like a code. It is a way to preserve the things that will die and the words of the people who will die. It is an imperfect record of what disappears over time.

Language is a way of preserving the things that will die and the words of the people who will die. It is an imperfect record of what disappears with time

And what do you think of the relationship between truth and literature?

It is something very individual and, perhaps, a mystery. We try to put words to those mysteries. Different artists use their medium, which in my case is language, to achieve this. But the truths of different people are very different.

And yet, there are people who believe they are always in possession of the truth.

I am not so. I don’t think I’m right. How could I be right?

It is impossible.

It seems impossible. There is no official art made for everyone. So, if someone finds something they like or something useful in a poem of mine, that’s wonderful. That’s what art is for.

To connect people?

Maybe, yes, and to reveal. If I read your novel, it would reveal to me a different world from that of my ancestors and, thanks to that, I would be able to better understand our species. Art has helped us understand very different people.

In that sense, do you believe that poetry is a form of civic action, of political action?

I think so. I believe that speech is a form of political action, saying what we believe is a form of political action. Many times, people die for saying what they believe politically. Generally, the price is not that high, but it is something that has happened throughout history. Every time we say what we believe and propose a possible way of doing things, it is a political action. Simply speaking seems like a political action to me.

So poetry is political.

I couldn’t say that, because in poetry there are aspects that are intimate in a way that politics in general seems not to be. A good poem has to have freedom, freedom of expression, and not just be a platform for someone to give their point of view.

So, should the creator publicly express his personal views on politics, on his country, on war?

It’s a great question… I’m not well informed enough. I don’t have the emotional strength to read the newspaper.

Don’t you read the newspapers?

This week I read them. But do I read the newspaper every day? No.

I don’t have the emotional strength to read the newspaper every day. It’s too sad and scary.

Because?

It’s too sad and too scary. If I’m going to write, I need a certain good humor or, at least, a bearable humor so I can think about what is true and what is not. But the question you asked me is very important. Many poets I know are very well informed about the historical moment we are living in, but I do not have that talent.

Are you afraid of losing hope?

Clear.

And, if I lost her, would I continue writing?

Well I hope so. I don’t write to save the world.

What do you write for?

Oh, I love making things. And in my heart love has a great weight. And when one gives a gift of love and tries to make it true according to his own truth, then he will do no harm. The more we understand each other and the more we understand how different we are and how similar we are, the more hope there is for the Earth and for the world.

And how does he relate to History, to time, through his poems?

Simply put, I put all my effort into writing a poem that works as a work of art and as a work of History. I am not a thinker who has knowledge and ideas and puts them into books to teach people things. I’m not that at all. I’m a pretty normal person. When I was growing up, women were limited to smaller roles, their jobs were childcare, housework, cooking, anything that wasn’t public. Then, I discovered that I was interested in writing about those topics. But not from a didactic point of view, but because I found in them beauty, truth, liveliness, some kind of positivity.

I am not a thinker who has knowledge and ideas and puts them into books to teach people things. I’m a pretty normal person

What did you learn from Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks, and all your mentors?

Something you notice when reading his poems is how different they are from each other. Emily Dickinson has that old, traditional way that opens up and spreads across the page. Gwendolyn Brooks has both qualities, she is both formal and free. For me, poetry is not so much about receiving a message. It’s more like dancing.

I love the metaphor.

The meter and rhyme of the verses. I’m kind of a narrative poet. I am lyrical, but I am narrative. So I’m kind of a storyteller and kind of a poet.

And why did you choose poetry instead of the novel?

I tried writing prose. I guess everyone starts out writing prose. I think I write better as a poet. It’s a way that makes me be a little more honest and a little less melodramatic. And I love the form, putting it on the page in such a way that maybe it enters the reader’s consciousness.

Do you write by hand?

Yes. I learned to type when I was seven, but the rhythm, the dance, was not the same as that of the arm.

Now that you talk about movement, do you think that the energy of a work, of a poem, can turn an experience into art?

You can suggest it. To me, it makes perfect sense that our species would want to make art as soon as we became human. If I read a poem that moves me a lot…

What happens then?

I feel that my heart is moved and so are my senses and my feeling of being alive increases.

There is a lot of lack of self-love throughout the world. It’s like we hate ourselves

Do you mind if people read your poetry from an autobiographical perspective?

I don’t care, it’s none of my business. I don’t talk about my work as autobiography or anti-autobiography. It doesn’t seem important to me. The important thing is whether a poem is useful, whether it is powerful. When I started writing, they only asked me if my writing was autobiographical, that’s all. And it was natural, I didn’t care. But I feel like I was asked so much about that, all the time, just because I was a woman. None of the male writers I knew were asked about the autobiographical nature of their works.

She doesn’t know how I understand her…

He understands it, of course, of course. I just hope we’re making some progress…

And do you feel exposed by what you share in your poems?

No. Am I exposed as someone who wants to be a creator? Yes. Am I exposed as someone who loves to write about the body? Yes. It is free will that leads me to write my poems.

One of the things I admire most about you is how much you love intimacy.

Yes Yes. Maybe everyone turns to art in part because of that intimacy. I hunger and thirst for experiences of intimacy and awareness of intimacy.

None of the male writers I knew were asked about the autobiographical nature of their works. Yes, I did, all the time, and they asked me because I was a woman.

He was 37 years old when he published his first collection of poems. Now, that she is about to turn 81, what does she think when she looks back?

I see how lucky I was to publish my first collection of poems at that age. She was, at the same time, a full-time mother and a full-time writer.

Is that possible?

Yes it was. From time to time they took naps [ríe]. My material was the ordinary, traditional family life. I was very lucky. The pandemic showed many of us how easy our lives have been. In many important ways, I was very lucky. I felt like I could write about things that were generally considered private, it was something I wanted to do, even though I was clearly told I was wrong.

But it wasn’t.

I don’t believe it. I don’t have many big ideas, so I tend to focus on what’s close enough to my nose to see. That’s the kind of writer I’ve been. I think about all the books I’ve read, all the ones here, in my office and… Writing is definitely a gift.

And also discipline

Yes. Discipline and complacency. Because, if you love writing, why not write? Remember that we are all writing this, this wave of stylistic history at the same time, and political history.

Do you enjoy teaching?

Oh yeah. I am very lucky to be able to associate with wonderful and powerful young writers. I learn a lot from them. And I feel the same as them, because each of us hopes that the next poem will contain something new, something exciting. I feel like we are working side by side.

And what advice would you give to a young writer?

My advice to any creator of any age would be, first, to take vitamins, to take care of yourself, to take care of your body, to take care of your health, to eat well. In my experience, from what I have seen in others, the path of drugs and alcohol is not a good path for a writer. The most important thing is to take care of yourself. And there is a lot of lack of self-love in everyone, not just among writers. It’s like we hate ourselves. And taking good care of yourself means working against that negative energy.

‘Eggs in the hand’

Sharon Olds

Translation of Óscar Curieses

Casimiro Parker already said it

120 pages

20 euros