Hi MJ,
Olds is one of the U.S.'s most widely-read poets, but she's controversial because of her deliberately flat "voice" as well as her sexual imagery (she wote a poem about wiping herself, another entitled "The Pope's Penis").
You might light contemporary formal verse better (with end rhyme and meter) Here's a sonnet by one of my favorites, by Steven Cramer:
That'll Be the Day:
the mind finally unwinds its clockwork nights,
and the body calms its restless leg syndrome
wiring calves to thighs — all panic gone
like the phtt an opened coffee can emits.
Thereafter, pleasures taken — a hardcover's
heft on the lap; the senses' high five;
how Leonardo's wings and pulleys save
a screen — will rhyme, albeit off, with labors.
Oh earthy clumps kneaded into lamps of clay
a potter's skill can center! Oh, the toys
of thought thought busted! They just need batteries.
I can't help hoping to be with me on that day
when each fat chance, for good, is realized,
the brilliant dying brilliant, the wise, wise. |
