Understanding Sharon Olds explores this Pulitzer Prize winning poet s major themes, characters, life, and career, including her often-controversial portrayals of family dysfunction, sexuality, and violence against women. In this first book dedicated entirely to the poetry of Sharon Olds, Russell Brickey examines how Olds approaches these difficult and complex topics with pathos and intimate, sometimes provocatively private, details through poetry that not all her critics appreciate.
Olds has never shied away from difficult subject matter. Her first award-winning book, Satan Says, is a...

For English instructors at every level, the task of producing a worthwhile, workable plan for each class period can prove a perennially nerve-wracking experience. To ease this challenge, this invaluable work offers a vast compilation of writing exercises and in-class activities collected from professors, graduate students and lecturers from colleges and universities across the U.S. Step-by-step instructions guide teachers through class discussions and exercises on topics ranging from invention, argumentation, formatting, thesis development and organization to rhetorical situation, visual...