Join the Circle for a discussion of selected works by Sharon Olds. Click here for selected poems: Sharon Olds 6_26 or stop by the Help Desk.
Sharon Olds is the author of twelve poetry collections, most recently Balladz (2022). Her work has earned major honors, including the Pulitzer Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Stag’s Leap (2012), and a Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist for Arias (2019). Other notable books include Odes (2016), One Secret Thing (2009), and Strike Sparks (2004), a career-spanning selection that won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Known for her intensely personal, unflinching poems about family life, sexuality, and political realities, Olds has received numerous awards and fellowships, including from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA. She served as New York State Poet from 1998 to 2000 and teaches as the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Creative Writing at NYU, where she also helped establish writing programs for hospital residents and veterans. She lives in New York City.