Surely our most probing and productive poet, especially when it comes to the period and what was once coyly called “the pudenda,” is Sharon Olds. Her latest paeans to the parts of women occur in her 2016 collection simply titled, Odes. The book was recently reviewed in the New York Times with Olds referred to in the headline as the “Laureate of Sexuality.” Though she does take time to make mention of other topics, such as in Ode to Whiteness, Ode to Buttermilk, Pine Tree Ode, and Ode to Wind, the bulk of the most compelling topic running through the 64 selections is her examination of women’s bodies and sexuality. (With a few thoughts along the way on men’s parts: Ode to the Penis and Ode to the Glans.)
Barely an organ or a surface in women’s physical domain is left unexamined. There are odes addressed to the clitoris, cleavage, legs, wattles, fat, stretch marks, hip replacement, the hymen, the vagina, and even the merkin. And, of special interest to readers of Menstrual Matters, are the odes that do, in fact, address the matter of menstruation: Ode to the Tampon, Ode to the Female Reproductive System, Toxic Shock Ode, and Ode to Menstrual Blood.
In Ode to Menstrual Blood she needs only 22 lines to take on the multi-layered complexity of attitudes, feelings, myths, fears, and joys that menstrual flow elicits, ending with an ending that is, naturally, a beginning:
. . .Go down in honor, through the
pipes and treatment plants and rivers,
to the sea, and be drawn up, from it, into
clouds, and in your altered form
rain down upon your people, hardy
elixir, transparent manna.
This is the eleventh volume of poetry from Sharon Olds, and it follows her 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning Stag’s Leap, which the Pulitzer board described as “a book of unflinching poems on the author’s divorce that examine love, sorrow, and the limits of self-knowledge.” Now she might well add another title to her list of honors: Poet Laureate of the Period.
David Linton is an Emeritus Professor at Marymount Manhattan College. He is also Editor of the SMCR Newsletter and a member of the Menstruation Matters editorial board. His research focus is on media representations of the menstrual cycle as well as how women and men relate to one another around the presence of menstruation.
