Book

Olds, Sharon, author.

The wellspring : poems / by Sharon Olds.

First edition.

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

©1995

ix, 88 pages ; 22 cm

Poems on love and the family. In The Planned Child, she writes: "I hated the fact that they planned me ... made a chart of the month and put / her temperature on it, rising and falling, / to know the day to make me--I would have / liked to have been conceived in heat, / in haste, by mistake, in love, in sex, / not on cardboard, the little x on the / rising line that did not fall again."

"Sharon Old's dazzling new collection is a sequence of poems that reaches into the very wellspring of life. The poems take us back to the womb, and from there on to childhood, to a searing sexual awakening, to the shock of childbirth, to the wonder and humor of parenthood--and finally, to the depths of adult love."--Jacket.

Cape poetry.

Women poets, American.

American poetry -- Women authors.

Motherhood -- Poetry.

Mother and child -- Poetry.

Life cycle, Human -- Poetry.

Families -- Poetry.

Women -- Sexual behavior -- Poetry.

Poetry.

Visiting my mother's college -- My parents' wedding night, 1937 -- The planned child -- Japanese-American farmhouse, California, 1942 -- Earliest memory -- My first weeks -- For my mother -- The lisp -- Christian child -- Killing my sister's fish -- The swimming race -- Parents' day -- Dirty memories -- Mrs. Krikorian -- Necking -- First -- Adolescence -- Early images of Heaven -- Celibacy at twenty -- The source -- Making love -- I Llve it when -- The dragons -- After making love in winter -- May 1968 -- First birth -- Her first week -- Bathing the new born -- History of medicine -- Milk-bubble ruins -- Socks -- A mother at the end of June -- Twelve years old -- The hand -- Good will -- Lament -- Poem to our son after a high fever -- Prayer during that time -- Forty-one, alone, no gerbil -- The cast -- The siblings -- Love's eyesight -- The transformed boy -- The last birthday at home -- Solo -- Physics -- My son the man -- First formal -- The ordeal -- The lady bug -- The bonding -- High school senior -- The pediatrician retires -- This hour -- His father's cadaver -- West -- Lifelong -- Full summer -- Last night -- Am and am not -- True love.

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95015835

0679445927

9780679445920

0679765603

9780679765608

32391303

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811 Olds