An Analysis Of I Go Back To May 1937 By Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds is a poet who enjoys keeping her readers on their toes. Her images cut quickly from the gory to the beautiful and back again (Poetry Foundation). This technique is quite clear in “I Go Back to May 1937”. The clear-cut imagery conveys the theme of consequences for rash decisions through Olds’ tone of anger and shame admonishing her parents. This is evident by the form of her poem, her literary techniques, and her life's influence.

Olds format of free verse provides her freedom to move in and out of lines with the details she chooses. Her poetry is known for this accessible and direct free verse style. Often first-person narratives, her poetic voice is known for both its precision and versatility (Poetry Foundation). Her shocking

imagery wouldn't be quite as accessible with constraints such as rhythm and meter. Olds establishes her own rhythm through punctuation. “I want to go up to them and say Stop, don't do it--she's the wrong woman, he's the wrong man, you are going to do things you cannot imagine you would ever do” (Olds 13-16). Olds use of commas allows her to choose when the audience pauses and reflects on what they just heard. She forces the audience to analyze the images she has portrayed of her parents, making their feelings one with her own. This gives the poem a forceful and emotional impact.
Olds’ use of distinct imagery mentioned in the previous paragraph brings a new life to her poetry.

Similes such as “glinting like bent plates of blood behind his head” ease the reader into the foretelling of the dysfunction that awaits this ill-fated couple (Olds lines 4-5) (Seeley 7). The comparison to blood is harsh and unexpected and directly contrasts to the mention of the formal gates of the college in line one. Her clear cut imagery and contrast between the beautiful and unexpected contribute directly to the tone of anger felt towards her parents. The alliteration in lines four to seven is also an example of how Olds forms rhythm while still keeping her own style. Olds jumps from the image of seeing her parents as if in a picture to picking them up like paper dolls. “ I take them up like the male and female paper dolls and bang them together at the hips like chips of flint as if to strike sparks from them” (Olds 26-29). The jump from one abstract image to another could cause the reader to lose touch with the original image, but this line gives the reader a feeling of both sexual excitement and the resulting disaster this excitement will cause (Seeley 8). Although the jump may be risky, it gives the illusion that the power is in the narrator’s hands, when in fact it is not. Pictures in this poem are comprehensible and immediate and are perceived by the senses and mind (Asian Journal of Literature 82). Without the specificity of her images, the pictures created would

not have them same surprising and emotional impact on the reader.
The repetition in this poem reflects the narrator's feelings towards her parents.

The repetition of ‘I’ portrays the personal level that the narrator is angered on. This allows the reader to connect more closely to the feelings of the poem, invoking anger in them as well. One use of I that makes this poem strong is “I want to live.” This line changes the tone of the poem from anger to the shame she feels against her parents and partly herself for not being able to stop them. The last line of the poem, ”Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it,” makes up for her inability to change the course of her parents. Because of reality’s limitations, the narrator is unable to change her parents course. Instead, as the witness, she has the opportunity and responsibility not only to record the experience, but to do so without editing out or sprucing up the ugly parts (Halko 8). The repetition of ‘they are’ prepares the reader for what the narrator is going to say next with the repetition of ‘you are going to’ as the she thinks of what she would tell her parents is going to happen in the future. Olds says, “You are going to suffer in ways you never heard of” (line 18). In describing the life of her parents before they married and had children and the contrast of their feelings afterwards , Olds reflects on the idea of people drawn together by destiny and love who are not able to commit to what they seek through that love (Bowers 74). When the narrator imagines herself

walking up to her parents, the phrase “[P]itiful beautiful untouched body,” is repeated to describe them. The use of the word pitiful helps display the shame the narrator feels.. This creates a feeling of each individual's innocence, an innocence that is corrupted by their marriage (Seeley 8). Olds plays off of this innocence through the first half of the poem then switches to focus on the corrupted side of her parents brought on by their marriage.
While not all poetry is about direct personal experiences, Sharon Olds is a writer whose personal life influences her work. Olds says she was raised as a “hellfire Calvinist” and a usual topic of hers is her fraught relationship with her parents (Poetry Foundation). This is evident by the titles of some of her poems, such as “Why My Mother Made Me” and “Looking at My Father”, both of which were published in The Gold Cell along with “I Go Back To May 1937”. A line from “I Go Back To May 1937” says, “you are going to do bad things to children, you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of, you are going to want to die” (lines 17-19). It can be inferred that Olds is pushing her personal life into this poem specifically at this point. Her parents were miserable in their marriage, then they in turn forced that misery upon their children. Olds writing about her parents’ actions is the repercussions of their decision to get married and treat their children as they did. She lets her feeling about her parents and their actions flow into her writing which is most evident in this piece of poetry.
Although Old’s life has the biggest influence on the theme of this poem, it would never be as strong without the literary devices. Without the harsh changing imagery, the picture Olds wanted to create wouldn't come off the same. The cutting imagery forces the audience to stay on their toes in anticipation of what she will say next. Her format allowed her to present those images without constrictions and the repetition and first person view allowed the reader to connect with the poem on a personal level. Without these elements, the theme and the poem would not have had life or the emotional impact Olds writing invokes.