View source for Sharon Olds

{{short description|American poet}}
{{Use American English|date=March 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox person
| name          = Sharon Olds
| image         = Sharon Olds (Madrid) (cropped).jpg
|image_upright=0.9
| caption       = Olds in 2015
| birth_name    =
| birth_date    = {{Birth date and age|1942|11|19}}
| birth_place   = [[San Francisco]], [[California]], U.S.
| death_date    = 
| death_place   = 
| education     = [[Stanford University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br>[[Columbia University]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])
| occupation    = [[Poet]]
| awards        = [[Pulitzer Prize in Poetry]], [[T. S. Eliot Prize]], [[National Book Critics Circle Award]]
| spouse             = {{marriage|David Douglas Olds|1969|1997}}
| partner            = Carl Wallman
| children           = 2
| website            = {{URL|sharonolds.net}}
}}
'''Sharon Olds''' (born November 19, 1942) is an American poet. She won the first [[San Francisco State University]] Poetry Center Award in 1980,<ref>"[https://poetry.sfsu.edu/past-winners-poetry-center-book-award Recipients of the Poetry Center Book Award, 1980–present]", San Francisco State University Poetry Center; [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sharon-olds "Sharon Olds]", Poetry Foundation.</ref> the 1984 [[National Book Critics Circle Award]],<ref>[https://www.bookcritics.org/past-awards/1984/ "1984 Winners & Finalists"], National Book Critics Circle.</ref> and the 2013 [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry]].<ref name="2013 Pulitzer Prizes">"[https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/2013 2013 Pulitzer Prizes]", The Pulitzer Prizes.</ref> She teaches creative writing at [[New York University]] and is a previous director of the Creative Writing Program at NYU.<ref>"[https://as.nyu.edu/cwp/graduate/faculty.html Creative Writing Program - Core Graduate Faculty]," NYU Arts & Science.</ref>

==Early life==
Sharon Olds was born, as Sharon Stuart Cobb,<ref name="ebsco/sharon-olds">{{cite web |title=Sharon Olds |url=https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/sharon-olds |website=EBSCO Research |access-date=15 October 2025 |language=en}}</ref> on November 19, 1942, in [[San Francisco]], California, but was brought up in [[Berkeley, California]], along with her siblings.<ref name="Sharon Olds">[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sharon-olds "Sharon Olds]", Poetry Foundation.</ref> She was raised as a "hellfire [[Calvinist]]," as she describes it.<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20170617130858/https://www.modernamericanpoetry.org/poet/sharon-olds Sharon Olds]", ''Modern American Poetry''.</ref> Her father, like his before him, was an [[alcoholic]] who was often abusive to his children. In Olds' writing she often refers to the time (or possibly even times) when her father tied her to a chair.<ref name="YouTube/7ywdMJ0uL4A">{{cite web |author1=[[New Hampshire PBS]] |title=Sharon Olds |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ywdMJ0uL4A |publisher=|via=[[YouTube]] |access-date=15 October 2025 |date=22 April 2014 |quote=Poet Sharon Olds sits down with humorist Rebecca Rule}}</ref><ref>[http://barclayagency.com/speakers/videos/olds.html The Barclay Agency] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402160634/http://barclayagency.com/speakers/videos/olds.html |date=2015-04-02 }}</ref> Olds' mother was often either unable or too afraid to come to the aid of her children.

The strict religious environment in which Olds was raised had certain rules of censorship and restriction. Olds was not permitted to go to the movies and the family did not own a television, but her reading was not censored. She liked fairy tales, and also read [[Nancy Drew]] and [[Life (magazine)|''Life'']] magazine.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2013/04/26/interview-with-poet-sharon-olds/BzVG1akoejxrah6kvzFZVN/story.html?p1=Article_Related_Box_Article#| title=Sharon Olds | author=Amy Sutherland|work=[[The Boston Globe]]| date=April 26, 2013}}</ref> By nature "a [[Paganism|pagan]] and a [[Pantheism|pantheist]]," she has said that in childhood she was exposed in her church to "both great literary art and bad literary art," with "the great art being [[psalms]] and the bad art being hymns. The four-beat was something that was just part of my consciousness from before I was born." Of her Calvinist childhood, she said in 2011 that though she was about 15 when she conceived of herself as an [[atheist]], "I think it was only very recently that I can really tell that there's nobody there with a copybook making marks against your name."<ref name="Sharon Olds: Blood, sweat and fears">"[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/sharon-olds-blood-sweat-and-fears-421691.html Sharon Olds: Blood, sweat and fears]", ''Independent'', September 22, 2011.</ref>

Olds was sent east to [[Dana Hall School]], an all-girls school for grades 6 to 12 in [[Wellesley, Massachusetts]], that boasts an impressive list of alumnae.<ref name="Dana Hall School: Sharon Olds 1960">[http://library.danahall.org/archives/danapedia/alumnae/sharon-olds-1960/ Dana Hall School: Sharon Olds 1960]</ref> There she studied mostly English, History, and Creative Writing. Her favorite poets included [[William Shakespeare]], [[Emily Dickinson]], [[Walt Whitman]], and [[Edna St. Vincent Millay]], but it was [[Allen Ginsberg]]'s ''[[Howl and Other Poems]]'' that she carried in her purse through 10th grade.<ref>"[https://www.vogue.com/article/fine-print-poet-sharon-olds-chronicles-the-end-of-her-marriage-in-a-new-collection Fine Print: Poet Sharon Olds Chronicles the End of Her Marriage in a New Collection]", ''Vogue'', August 22, 2012.</ref>

For her bachelor's degree Olds returned to California where she earned her BA at [[Stanford University]] in 1964. Following this, Olds once again moved cross country to New York, where she earned her Ph.D. in English in 1972 from [[Columbia University]].<ref name="Sharon Olds"/> She teaches creative writing at [[New York University]]. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on "[[Ralph Waldo Emerson|Emerson]]'s Prosody," because she appreciated the way he defied convention.<ref name="Dana Hall School: Sharon Olds 1960"/>

==Personal life==
 {{Quote box |width=400px |align=right |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=center
 |quote =<poem>
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, 
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty face turning to me, 
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome face turning to me, 
his pitiful beautiful untouched body, 
but I don’t do it. I want to live. 
</poem>
 |source =From "I Go Back to May 1937" <br/>''Strike Sparks: Selected Poems 1980–2002'' (2004)<ref>Sharon Olds, "[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47057/i-go-back-to-may-1937 I Go Back to May 1937]", Poetry Foundation.</ref>}}
On March 23, 1968, she married Dr. David Douglas Olds in New York City and, in 1969, gave birth to the first of their two children. In 1997, after 29 years of marriage, they divorced. She lives in the same [[Upper West Side]] apartment she has lived in for many years while working as a Professor at [[New York University]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/sharon-olds-my-husband-left-me-after-32-years--but-i-refuse-to-be-a-victim-8455264.html| title=Sharon Olds: My husband left me after 32 years — but I refuse to be a victim | author=Melanie McDonagh|work=[[London Evening Standard]]| date=January 17, 2013}}</ref> In a review of her 2022 collection ''[[Balladz]]'', Tristram Fane Saunders mentions the moving poems she wrote about her longtime partner, the late Carl Wallman of New Hampshire, who died in 2020.<ref>Tristram Fane Saunders, "[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/poet-sharon-olds-went-straight-top-guy-satan/ Poet Sharon Olds: 'I went to the top guy, Satan']," ''The Telegraph'', January 5, 2023,</ref>

In 2005, First Lady [[Laura Bush]] invited Olds to the [[National Book Festival]] in [[Washington, D.C.]] Olds declined the invitation and responded with an [[open letter]] published in ''[[The Nation]]''. The editors suggested others follow her example. She concluded her letter by explaining: "So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it."<ref>Sharon Olds, "[https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/open-letter-laura-bush/ Open Letter to Laura Bush]," ''The Nation,'' September 19, 2005.</ref>

==Poetry==
Following her Ph.D., Olds let go of an attachment to what she thought she knew about poetic convention and began to write about her family, abuse, and sex, focusing on the work and not the audience.

Olds has said that she is more informed by the work of poets such as [[Galway Kinnell]], [[Muriel Rukeyser]] and [[Gwendolyn Brooks]] than by [[Confessional poetry|confessional poets]] like [[Anne Sexton]] or [[Sylvia Plath]]. Plath, she comments "was a great genius, with an IQ of at least double mine" and while these women charted well the way of women in the world she says "their steps were not steps I wanted to put my feet in."<ref name="Sharon Olds: Blood, sweat and fears"/>

When Olds first sent her poetry to a literary magazine she received a reply saying, "This is a literary magazine. If you wish to write about this sort of subject, may we suggest the ''[[Ladies' Home Journal]]''. The true subjects of poetry are … male subjects, not your children."<ref name="Sabine Durrant">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jan/26/sharon-olds-american-poet-divorce |title=Sharon Olds: Confessions of a divorce |work=[[The Guardian]] |author=Sabine Durrant |date=26 January 2013 |access-date=26 January 2013 |location=London}}</ref>

Olds eventually published her first collection, ''Satan Says'', in 1980, at the age of 37. ''Satan Says'' sets up the sexual and bodily candour that would run through much of her work. In "The Sisters of Sexual Treasure" she writes, "As soon as my sister and I got out of our/ mother's house, all we wanted to/do was fuck, obliterate/her tiny sparrow body and narrow/grasshopper legs."<ref name="independent.co.uk">Quoted in "[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/sharon-olds-blood-sweat-and-fears-421691.html Sharon Olds: Blood, sweat and fears]", ''Independent'', September 22, 2011.</ref>

The collection is divided into four sections: "Daughter," "Woman," "Mother," "Journeys." These titles echo the familial influence that is prevalent in much of Olds' work.

''The Dead and the Living'' was published in February 1984. This collection is divided into two sections: "Poems for the Dead" and "Poems for the Living."  The first section begins with poems about global injustices. These injustices include the [[Armenian genocide]] during [[World War I|WWI]], the [[Tulsa race riot|1921 Tulsa Race Riot]], the reign of [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi|Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi]], and even the [[death of Marilyn Monroe]].

Olds' book ''The Wellspring'' (1996), shares with her previous work the use of raw language and startling images to convey truths about domestic and political violence and family relationships.<ref name="Author Page: Sharon Olds">"[https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/olds.html Author Page: Sharon Olds]", New York State Writers Institute.</ref> In a ''New York Times'' review, Lucy McDiarmid hailed her poetry for its vision: "like [[Walt Whitman|Whitman]], Ms. Olds sings the body in celebration of a power stronger than political oppression."<ref>Lucy McDiarmid, "[https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/15/books/private-parts.html Private Parts]", ''New York Times'', September 15, 1996.</ref> [[Alicia Ostriker]] noted Olds traces the "erotics of family love and pain." Ostriker continues: "In later collections, [Olds] writes of an abusive childhood, in which miserably married parents bully and punish and silence her. She writes, too, of her mother's apology "after 37 years," a moment when "The sky seemed to be splintering, like a window/someone is bursting into or out of."<ref name="independent.co.uk"/> Olds' work is anthologized in over 100 collections, ranging from literary/poetry textbooks to special collections. Her poetry has been translated into seven languages for international publications. She has been published in [[Beloit Poetry Journal]]. She was the New York State [[Poet laureate|Poet Laureate]] for 1998–2000.<ref name="Author Page: Sharon Olds"/>

''[[Stag's Leap (book)|Stag's Leap]]'' was published in 2013. The poems were written in 1997, following the divorce from her husband of 29 years. The poems focus on her husband, and even sometimes his mistress. The collection won the [[T. S. Eliot Prize]].<ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/poet-sharon-olds-scoops-ts-eliot-prize-for-confessional-work-about-her-husbands-affair-8451387.html | location=London | work=The Independent | first=Nick | last=Clark | title=Poet Sharon Olds scoops TS Eliot Prize for 'confessional' work about her husband's affair | date=14 January 2013}}</ref> She is the first American woman to win this award.<ref name="autogenerated1" /> It also won the [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry]].<ref>"[https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/sharon-olds The 2013 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Poetry]", The Pulitzer Prizes.</ref>

==Women's Movement==
Olds did not participate in the [[Women's liberation movement|Women's Movement]] at first, but she says, "My first child was born in 1969. In 1968 the Women's Movement in New York City—especially among a lot of women I knew—was very alive. I had these strong ambitions to enter the bourgeoisie if I could. I wasn't a radical at all. But I do remember understanding that I had never questioned that men had all the important jobs. And that was shocking—well, I was 20 years old! I'd never thought, "Oh, where's the woman bus driver?" So there's another subject—which was what it felt like to be a woman in the world."<ref>"[https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/advice-young-poets-sharon-olds-conversation Advice to Young Poets: Sharon Olds in Conversation]", Michael Laskey, Poets.org, May 12, 2010.</ref>

==Honors and awards==
* 1978 Creative Artists Public Service Grant<ref name="OLDS, Sharon">[http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-3417100120/olds-sharon-1942.html OLDS, Sharon]</ref>
* 1978 Madeline Sadin Award, ''[[New York Quarterly]]''<ref>[http://nyq.org/issues/current.html ''Issue 22'']</ref>
* 1979 Younger Poets Award, ''Poetry Miscellany''<ref name="OLDS, Sharon"/>
* 1980 ''Satan Says'' inaugural San Francisco Poetry Center Award.
* 1981–1982 [[Guggenheim Fellowship]], [[John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation]]<ref>[http://www.gf.org/fellows/10917-sharon-olds Sharon Olds Guggenheim Fellowship Member Page] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402180918/http://www.gf.org/fellows/10917-sharon-olds |date=2015-04-02 }}</ref>
* 1982–1983 [[National Endowment for the Arts]] Fellowship<ref>[http://arts.gov/fact-sheet/creative-writing-fellowship-winners-and-national-awards Creative Writing Fellowship Winners and National Awards]</ref>
* 1983 ''The Dead and the Living'' [[Academy of American Poets|Lamont Poetry Prize]],<ref>{{cite book |title=The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1985 |date=1984 |publisher=Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc. |location=New York |isbn=0-911818-71-5 |page=414 }}</ref> and the [[National Book Critics Circle Award]].
* 1992 ''The Father'', shortlisted for the [[T. S. Eliot Prize]]<ref name="Sharon Olds: Blood, sweat and fears"/> and was a finalist for the [[National Book Critics Circle Award]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090211142710/https://english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/olds/about.htm About Sharon Olds]  [[University of Illinois]]</ref>
* 1993–1996 [[Lila Acheson Wallace|Lila Wallace]]-[[Reader's Digest]] Writers Award<ref>[http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Lila-Wallace-Readers-Digest-Writers-Award.pdf Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writers' Awards] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402133947/http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Lila-Wallace-Readers-Digest-Writers-Award.pdf |date=2015-04-02 }}</ref>
* 1998–2000 [[:Category:Poets laureate of New York (state)|New York State Poet Laureate]]<ref name="Author Page: Sharon Olds"/>
* 2002 Academy of American Poets Fellowship<ref>[http://www.poets.org/academy-american-poets/prizes/academy-american-poets-fellowship Academy of American Poets Fellowship Winners]</ref> 
* 2002 ''The Unswept Room'', Finalist for the [[National Book Award for Poetry]]<ref>[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-2002#.VRD3EFvZfVo National Book Awards – 2002]</ref>
* 2003 Judge, [[Griffin Poetry Prize]]; for "distinguished poetic achievement at mid-career"<ref>[http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/judges/2003-judges/ 2003 Judges]</ref>
* 2004 [[Barnes & Noble]] Writers for Writers Awards<ref>[http://www.pw.org/about-us/writers_writers_award_and_editors_award Writers for Writers Awards]</ref>
* 2004 Became member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]]<ref>[https://www.amacad.org/multimedia/pdfs/classlist.pdf List of Active Members by Class]</ref>
* 2006–2012 Chancellor of the [[Academy of American Poets]]<ref>[http://www.poets.org/academy-american-poets/chancellors American Academy of Poets Chancellors]</ref>
* 2009 ''One Secret Thing'', shortlisted for the [[T. S. Eliot Prize]]<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8451000/8451972.stm BBC article and audio files 15 January 2010]</ref> and the [[Forward Prizes for Poetry]]<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/23/forward-poetry-prize-shortlist |title=Strong shortlist hailed for Forward poetry prize |work=[[The Guardian]] |author=Mark Brown |date=22 July 2009 |access-date=21 March 2015 |location=London}}</ref>
*2012 [[T. S. Eliot Prize]], ''Stag's Leap''<ref name="Sabine Durrant"/>
* 2012 ''Stag's Leap'', named as one of "[[Oprah Winfrey|Oprah]]'s Favorite Reads of 2012"<ref>[http://www.oprah.com/book/Stags-Leap?editors_pick_id=40963 The Best Nonfiction of 2012]</ref>
*2013 [[Pulitzer Prize]], ''Stag's Leap''<ref name="2013 Pulitzer Prizes"/>
* 2014 [[Donald Hall]]-[[Jane Kenyon]] Prize in American Poetry<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/11682337-95/pittsfields-sharon-olds-wins-poetry-prize-to-read-in-concord |title=Pittsfield's Sharon Olds wins poetry prize, to read in Concord |work=[[Concord Monitor]] |author=Mike Pride |date=26 April 2014 |access-date=23 March 2015 |location=New Hampshire}}</ref>
* 2015 Elected to become a member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]] (to be inducted mid-May 2015)<ref>[https://artsandletters.org/pressrelease/2015-new-members/#:~:text=New%20York%2C%20NY%2C%20February%2024,Sharon%20Olds%2C%20and%20Art%20Spiegelman. 2015 Newly Elected Members], American Academy of Arts and Letters, February 24, 2015.</ref>
* 2016 Wallace Stevens Award from the [[Academy of American Poets]]
* 2020 Shortlisted for the [[Griffin Poetry Prize]], ''Arias''<ref>[https://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/the-griffin-poetry-prize-announces-the-2020-international-and-canadian-shortlist/ The Griffin Poetry Prize Announces the 2020 International and Canadian Shortlist], The Griffin Trust, April 7, 2020.</ref>
* 2022 Poetry Society of America's [[Poetry Society of America#Awards|Robert Frost Medal]] awardee <ref>{{cite news |url=https://poetrysociety.org/about/news/announcing-the-2022-frost-medalist-sharon-olds] |title=Announcing the 2022 Frost Medalist, Sharon Olds |work=Poetry Society of America |date=31 January 2022 |access-date=11 July 2024 |location=Brooklyn, New York}}</ref>
* 2023 Awarded the inaugural [[Joan Margarit International Poetry Prize]]<ref>{{cite news |url=https://joanmargaritaward.com/en/felipe-vi-presents-sharon-olds-with-the-1st-joan-margarit-poetry-award/ | title=King Felipe VI presents Sharon Olds the 1st Joan Margarit Poetry Award Premio |work=Internacional Joan Margarit de Poesía |date=July 20, 2023 |access-date=11 July 2024}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
{{Incomplete list|date=August 2015}}

===Collections===
*1980 ''Satan Says,'' [[University of Pittsburgh Press]] {{ISBN|978-0822953142}}
*1984 ''The Dead and the Living,'' [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]] {{ISBN|978-0394715636}}
*1987 ''The Gold Cell'', [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]] {{ISBN|978-0394747705}}
*1987 ''The Matter of This World'', Slow Dancer Press {{ISBN|978-0950747989}}
*1991 ''The Sign of Saturn'', [[Secker & Warburg]] {{ISBN|978-0436200298}}
*1992 ''The Father'', [[Secker & Warburg]] {{ISBN|978-0679740025}}
*1996 ''The Wellspring'', [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]] {{ISBN|978-0679765608}}
*1999 ''Blood, Tin, Straw'', [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]] {{ISBN|978-0375707353}}
*2002 ''The Unswept Room'', [[Tandem Library Group|Tandem Library]] {{ISBN|978-0375709982}}
*2004 ''Strike Sparks: Selected Poems 1980–2002'', [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]] {{ISBN|978-0375710766}}
*2008 ''One Secret Thing'', [[Random House]] {{ISBN|978-0375711770}}
*2012 ''[[Stag's Leap (book)|Stag's Leap]]'', [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]] {{ISBN|978-0375712258}}
*2016 ''Odes'', [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]] {{ISBN|978-0451493644}}
*2017 ''Penguin Modern Poets 3: Your Family, Your Body'' by [[Malika Booker]], Sharon Olds, [[Warsan Shire]]. [[Penguin poetry anthologies|Penguin]]. {{ISBN|0141984023}}
*2019 ''Arias'' [[Penguin Random House]] {{ISBN|978-1-787-33215-7}}
*2022 ''[[Balladz]]'' [[Alfred A. Knopf]] {{ISBN|978-1-5247-1161-0}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{external links|date=October 2020}}
{{cc}}
* [http://www.sharonolds.net Official website]

'''Profiles'''
*[https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/sharon-olds Sharon Olds] - [[EBSCO Information Services]]
* [http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/olds/olds.htm Sharon Olds] University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – Modern American Poetry
* [https://web.archive.org/web/19990428171848/http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/olds.html Sharon Olds] Poet Laureate, [[albany.edu]]
*[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sharon-Olds Sharon Olds] - [[britannica.com]]
*[https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/olds-sharon-0 Olds, Sharon] - [[Encyclopedia.com]]
*[https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/olds-sharon-1942 Olds, Sharon 1942-] - [[Encyclopedia.com]]
*[https://poets.org/poet/sharon-olds Olds, Sharon 1942-] - [[Academy of American Poets]]
* [https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/sharon-olds Sharon Olds: Poems and Profile] at Poets.org
* [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=5124 Poems by Sharon Olds] at PoetryFoundation.org
*[https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poets/sharon-olds  Sharon Olds] - ''Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation''
*[https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3410 Sharon Olds] - [[Literary Encyclopedia]]

'''Readings'''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080807130109/http://www.kwls.org/lit/kwls_blog/2008/04/podcast.cfm Audio recording (.mp3) of Sharon Olds reading from her work at the Key West Literary Seminar, January 2003]

'''Reviews'''
* [http://cordite.org.au/essays/priest-olds-harwood-hewett/ Sharon Olds, Gwen Harwood and Dorothy Hewett: Truth, Lies, Poetry] ''Cordite Poetry Review''
* [http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/olds/critiques.htm Reviews of ''Blood, Tin, Straw''] - [[uiuc.edu]]

'''Interviews'''
* [http://podcast.lannan.org/2007/07/10/sharon-olds-with-michael-silverblatt/ Interview recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on April 10, 2002.] (Audio 1hr 30 mins)
* [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/06/sharon-olds-interview-stags-leap "Sharon Olds: 'I want a poem to be useful'"], Kate Kellaway, ''[[The Observer]]'', 5 January 2013
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100919172738/http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21435 "Advice to Young Poets: Sharon Olds in Conversation" from the 2009 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Recorded by The Poetry Trust]
* {{cite web| url=http://www.salon.com/1996/07/01/interview_19/| title=Sharon Olds, The Salon Interview| author=Dwight Garner| work=Salon.com| date=May 1997}}
* {{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jul/26/poetry| title=Olds' worlds': Interview | author=Marianne Macdonald | work=The Guardian| date=26 July 2008| location=London}}

{{PulitzerPrize PoetryAuthors 2001–2025}}
{{NY Poets Laureate|state=autocollapse}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olds, Sharon}}
[[Category:1942 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American women poets]]
[[Category:Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:New York University faculty]]
[[Category:Poets laureate of New York (state)]]
[[Category:Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners]]
[[Category:Stanford University alumni]]
[[Category:The New Yorker people]]
[[Category:Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area]]
[[Category:People from Pittsfield, New Hampshire]]
[[Category:People from the Upper West Side]]
[[Category:Writers from Manhattan]]
[[Category:Dana Hall School alumni]]
[[Category:T. S. Eliot Prize winners]]
[[Category:American women academics]]
[[Category:20th-century American poets]]
[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:21st-century American poets]]
[[Category:20th-century American women writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American women writers]]