num_pages: 96
description: The Father is a sequence of poems, a daughter's vision of a father's illness and death. It chronicles these events in a connected narrative, from the onset of the illness to reflections in the years after the death. The book is, most of all, a series of acts of understanding. The poems are impelled by a passion to know, and a freedom to follow wherever the truth may lead. The book goes into area of feeling and experience rarely entered in poetry.The ebullient language, the startling, far-reaching images, the sense of extraordinary connectedness seize us immediately. Sharon Olds transforms a harsh reality with truthfulness, with beauty, with humor--and without bitterness.The deep pain in The Father arises from a death, and from understanding a life. But there is joy as well. In the end, we discover we have been reading not a grim accounting but an inspiriting tragedy, transcending the personal. The radiance and daring that have always distinguished Sharon Old's work find here their most powerful expression.
language: English
title: The Father: Poems
titlecomplete: The Father: Poems
genres: American, Death, The United States Of America, Poetry, Nonfiction, Female Authors, College, Contemporary, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 1125
awards: awardedAt: 694252800000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Poetry
publisher: Knopf