Selected Poems

Sharon Olds' poems are pure fire in the hands - risky, on the verge of falling, and in the end leaping up. I love the toughness and humour and brag and tenderness and completion of her work

Michael Ondaatje

The attention to line, the superbly focused detail, the way her autobiographical detail strikes, shines, deepens, spreads: this, surely is the sound the confessional hordes have been trying to utter since Lowell, the right road that is missed so easily

Glyn Maxwell

Sharon Olds explores her own experience with an intransigent honesty and fiery dignity. The reader might flinch at the intimacy, but Olds strikes straight out for the truth

Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times

If any reading is 'essential', this is it

Carol Rumens

Olds remains too little-known in the UK...readers new to her will be astounded

Kate Clanchy, Independent

Her best work exhibits a lyrical acuity which is both purifying and redemptive. She sees description as a means to catharsis, and the end result is impossible to forget... Her poetry is remarkable for its candour, its eroticism, and its power to move

David Leavitt