Compare and Contrast

The ultimate goal in life is to find love. Both “Senior’s” by Alberto Rios and “Last Night” by Sharon Olds present a theme that sex is not love. Yet, “Senior’s” shows how a person’s view of sex and love changes with maturity, while “Last Night” tells that love does not come with sex.

The poem “Last Night” by Sharon Olds is about a sexual experience that she had. In the article, “Sharon Olds” the author states, “Olds is known for writing intensely personal, emotionally scathing poetry which graphically depicts family life as well as global political events”. Throughout the poem Olds uses graphic imagery to tell about this experience that she has had. She uses words such as “death-grip holding to life, violent hands clasped tight barley moving, like being closed in a great jaw and eaten”. The thought of rape should come with the use of these words and sex because of how violent it is but at no point in the poem does she say she does want to be having sex or wish it would stop. Then at the end of the poem she goes on to say that “you secured me in your arms till I slept- that was love” this part of the poem is saying that it isn’t sex that she thinks is love it is being held by the one by a special someone. This tells a lot about how Olds views love, it shows that sex isn’t love to her maybe just holding hands or an occasion hug goes a lot farther.

In “Senior’s” by Alberto Rios it is told in reflection of Rios and his life of love. At the beginning of the poem that word choice and the actions that Rios says his friends do imply that he is just a senior in high school. He says that “William cut a hole in his Levi’s pocket so he could flop himself out in class”. It is obvious that the immature boy is trying to impress gi...

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...on of his life and how his view of love and women has changed. Rios also matures through out the poem where as Olds poem is told from one night into the morning. Also in Olds poem it is told that what she see as love is not having sex but being held and comforted by a special someone however in Rios’s poem it is never stated what he believes love is or if he even ever did find love. In Olds poem it is also very clear that her view of sex is that it is violent that that she probable doesn’t like it very much, yet in Rios’s he wants to know what sex feels like so bad that he goes to the extreme and has sex with a flagstone wall.

Both poets want to be loved in the poems in their own way. While both poem’s present a theme of love, it is obvious that the poet’s view on love changes from how they view love at the beginning of the poem from how they see it at the end.