Still life in landscape vs After making love in winter

“Still Life in Landscape” and “After Making Love in winter” comparison by Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds is regarded as the one of the contemporary leading poets. She is the winner of a variety of awards for writing emotional based poems that depicts political and family events. In this discussion, this paper will compare two of the Olds’ poems “After Making Love in winter” and “Still life Landscape”. Despite that the two poems have been written by the same author, there are existing differences that cannot go unnoticed: A PREVIEW–ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW

Still Life in Landscape poem explains the challenges the character used in the poem had to undergo. For example, the poem starts by noting that it was very late in the rainy night and a woman was laying on the road where there were pieces of cars (Bartolomi). The topic of the poem clearly conform to the opening verses of the poem. It depicts the suffering that a woman had to undergo through. In this poem, poet tries to bring the issue of driving while drunk. It is evident that drunk driving has been the critical issue all over the wound. There are many accidents and deaths that occur because of drunk driving. This is the idea that Olds is trying to bring out in this poem.

The Still Life in Landscape portrays the real meaning of what drunk driving can cause. This poem has been interpreted through the perspectives of the audience, reader and the child. The child in this poem interprets how a dependent can go through awkward moments when someone she or relies at is unable to do so. The child in the poem comes across a frightening scene of the crash site whereby a woman is lying on back while the back of head is touching her spinal cord. This is well illustrated on line three to 5.

The description of the accident scene makes the reader shiver and get frightened of the experience and the feeling that the child goes through. This is a true replica of what goes around the world. The consequence cannot be forgotten and therefore, the society needs to wake up from this slumber by realizing that drunk driving can cause death or pain to the family members. Reality of drunk driving befalls to the people when the victim dies. Therefore, careless and ignorance caused the drunk driving and the consequences that the dependents goes through are the major two themes that the author is trying to address in this poem.

To put her message across Olds has applied a number of styles. First, the attribute of imagery comes clearly in the beginning of the poem, “It was a rainy night, and pieces of broken cars could be seen spread all over the road.” This is fist explanation through imagination that the accident had happened. Then the poet goes further to note that, “on the road there was lying a woman whose had curled behind her back.” This gives a picture to the reader how sever the accident was. The imagery at the above line is further supplemented by explanation on condition of the woman as she laid on the highway, “the woman clothes were almost off, her leg had gone and a long bone was sticking out of her thigh.” This depicts the suffering and the pain that a woman had gone through before she died: END PREVIEW–ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW

Works Cited 

Bartolomi, David. After Making Love in Winter. 11 May 1987. Web. 30 July 2017.

Bartolomi, David. Still Life in Landscape. 11 May 2017. Web. 20 July 2017.