{"id":462,"date":"2009-08-26T17:55:27","date_gmt":"2009-08-26T17:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/nucleus-import\/?p=462"},"modified":"2009-08-26T17:55:27","modified_gmt":"2009-08-26T17:55:27","slug":"a-poem-by-sharon-olds-review-by-mahnaz-badihian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/a-poem-by-sharon-olds-review-by-mahnaz-badihian\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem by Sharon Olds, review by Mahnaz Badihian"},"content":{"rendered":"
Sharon Olds. Photo by David Bartolomi.<\/div>\n

\nPoem: The Moment the Two Worlds Meet by Sharon Olds from the poetry collection The Gold Cell<\/p>\n

This poem starts with a very strong and distinct sentence that makes the reader curious.
\n \u201cThat\u2019s the moment I always think of.\u201d
\n
\n….
\nPoem: The Moment the Two Worlds Meet by Sharon Olds from the poetry collection The Gold Cell<\/i><\/p>\n

This poem starts with a very strong and distinct sentence that makes the reader curious.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the moment I always think of.\u201d <\/p>\n

The poet, Sharon Olds, is about to share a very memorable moment in her life that she can never forget and it does not take too long before she tells us what the moment is that she is referring to. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the slick, whole body comes out of me.\u201d <\/p>\n

She gets to the point without any hesitation and without the use of indirect language. She tells us about the birth of a child from her body. Olds then goes on throughout the poem telling us what she felt and saw during those moments when a human being, her child, was being born. Throughout the poem Olds uses many strong metaphors and images, as if she is painting the scene so that we as the reader can visualize the birth of that baby moment by moment. We as the reader vicariously give birth through the poet\u2019s words. She describes the way the child is being taken out in mechanical language,<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they pull it out, not pull it but steady it
\n as it pushes forth, not catch it but keep their
\nhands under it as it pulses out.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this section she is playing with words, push and pull, to create the action of the actual birth and then the action is over in the form of pulsation. She follows with a very touching sentence,<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are the first to touch it. \u201c <\/p>\n

It made me realize, for the first time, that actually nurses and doctors had the chance to touch my babies first before me. Are they stealing this moment from me?
\nHer use of images like, \u201cshines\u201d \u201cglistens\u201d \u201cthick liquid\u201d in part of the poem describes the wet surface of amniotic fluid that covers the new born. The poems continues, moment by moment as it happens,<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the moment, while it is sliding, the limbs
\n compressed close to body, the arms
\n bent like a crab\u2019s rosy legs.\u201d <\/p>\n

This image of the crabs rosy legs is so strong; you immediately can imagine those crab legs even before you think of the legs of a new born. This metaphor is so striking that you will always associate crabs legs with the position of a new born baby\u2019s leg. Every line is a detailed observation of the process of giving birth. Let us look at the following line, <\/p>\n

\u201dJuiced bluish sphere of the baby is
\nsliding between the two worlds,
\nwet, like sex, it is sex.\u201d <\/p>\n

In this one line it provides the reader with the texture and how it feels at the exact moment of birth. The amazing feeling and joy when you are almost done with the pain and contractions and you\u2019re long wait for that little face is finally over. It is so enjoyable that she calls it sex. She uses the two worlds metaphor to describe her legs and also the baby\u2019s two worlds before and after birth; uterus and outside of the uterus.
\nAlthough this poem expresses a woman\u2019s personal description toward giving birth to a child, it does not give us any sense of motherhood. This poem is a simple, mechanical description of the child bearing process. In fact, it is so sterile that she chooses not to mention the sex of the baby enhancing the sense of a generic birth. Even with the expression of a sexual sensation at birth, she does not expand on her feelings towards the baby, just the birth. <\/p>\n

…….
\nThe Moment the Two Worlds Meet
\nBy Sharon Olds, from the book \u201cThe Gold Cell\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the moment I always think of-when the
\nslick, whole body comes out of me,
\nwhen the pull it out, not pull it but steady it
\nas it pushes forth, not catch it but keep their
\nhands under it as it pulses out,
\nthey are the first to touch it,
\nand it shines, it glistens with the thick liquid on it.
\nthat\u2019s the moment, while it\u2019s sliding, the limbs
\ncompressed close to the body, the arms
\nbent like a crab\u2019s rosy legs, the
\nthighs closely packed plums in heavy syrup, the
\nlegs folded like the white wings of a chicken-
\nthat is the center of life, that moment when the
\njuiced bluish sphere of the baby is
\nsliding between the two worlds,
\nwet, like sex, it is sex
\nit is my life opening back and back
\nas you\u2019d strip the reed from the bud, not strip it but
\nwatch it thrust so it peels itself and the
\nflower is there, severely folded, and
\nthen it begins to open and dry
\nbut by then the moment is over,
\nthey wipe off the grease and wrap the child in a blanket and
\nhand it to you entirely in this world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poem: The Moment the Two Worlds Meet by Sharon Olds from the poetry collection The Gold Cell This poem starts with a very strong and distinct sentence that makes the reader curious. \u201cThat\u2019s the moment I always think of.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":550,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/550"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}