Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Still Life" by Sharon Olds is a poignant and introspective poem that navigates the complexities of familial relationships, particularly the speaker's detachment from their mother during a critical moment. The poem intertwines the mundane with the profound, using the setting of an art exhibit and the mother's distant medical emergency to explore themes of distance, emotional numbness, and the introspective realization of one's own feelings.

The poem opens with the speaker recounting their experience at a "still life show," a setting that immediately conjures images of inert objects and a calm, controlled environment. The phrase "At moments almost thinking of her" suggests a tentative connection to the mother, indicating a lingering but not fully present awareness of her. The mother's situation—having a stroke while "teaching someone, three times zones away, to peel and slice a banana"—is described with a mundane specificity that contrasts sharply with the gravity of her condition. This contrast highlights the disconnection and the trivialization of what could have been a moment of significant concern.

The poem's vivid imagery describes the still life exhibition, with the speaker surrounded by "little leeks, near the sweated egg, near the newts quick and the newts gone over on their backs." These objects, typically lifeless and arranged for artistic contemplation, symbolize the speaker's emotional state—detached, observing, and disconnected from the unfolding crisis. The description of the orange, "trailed from its shoulders the stole of its rind," metaphorically represents the passage of time and the inevitable decay that comes with distance from its origin, mirroring the growing emotional distance between the speaker and the mother.

The mother's sudden collapse is depicted with clinical detachment: "She held the banana and lectured like a child professor on its longitudes and divisible threes, / she raised her hands to her temples, and held them, and screamed, and fell to her bedroom floor." The specificity of the mother's actions contrasts with the speaker's calm, almost indifferent reaction: "I wandered, calm, among oysters, and walnuts, mice, apricots, coins, a golden smiling skull." The still life objects and their descriptions—a "wild flayed hare strung up by one foot like a dancer leaping"—evoke a sense of the surreal, as if the speaker is in a dreamlike state, disconnected from the reality of the mother's suffering.

The speaker's acknowledgment of the mother's death, "her spirit had left her body while I was immersed in pretty matter," reveals a poignant self-awareness. The "pretty matter" of the art exhibit represents distractions and superficial engagements that kept the speaker from fully confronting the mother's condition. The line "I almost felt something had served her right" is jarring, expressing a complex mix of guilt, resentment, and perhaps a mirrored reflection of the mother's own feelings toward her mother.

The poem concludes with a reflective moment, where the speaker recalls comforting the mother for having similar feelings about her own mother's death. The image of seeing "my face over her shoulder, in a gilded mirror" encapsulates the realization of the continuity of emotional distance and detachment passed down through generations. The "gilded mirror" symbolizes not only the superficial beauty and decorum that can mask deeper truths but also the reflective nature of self-awareness.

"Still Life" by Sharon Olds intricately weaves together the themes of detachment, emotional inheritance, and the complex dynamics of parent-child relationships. The juxtaposition of the mundane with the profound, and the speaker's introspective realization of their own emotional state, provides a deep exploration of the human condition, especially in the context of familial connections. Through her nuanced language and vivid imagery, Olds captures the subtle, often painful realities of dealing with loss and the internal conflicts that arise from it.

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