Poem of the Month: April 2024
The Easel, by Sharon Olds. LBC Poetry Series #2404
This month, we go down a different path, looking at something more contemporary than classic; The Easel by Sharon Olds.
The Easel
By Sharon Olds, 1942 -
When I build a fire, I feel purposeful –
proud I can unscrew the wing nuts
from off the rusted bolts, dis-
assembling one of the things my ex
left when he left right left. And laying its
narrow, polished, maple angles
across the kindling, providing for updraft –
good. Then by flame-light I see: I am burning
his med-school easel. How can that be,
after the hours and hours – all told, maybe
weeks, a month of stillness – modelling
for him, our first years together,
odour of acrylic, stretch of treated
canvas. I am burning his left-behind craft,
he who was the first to turn
our family, naked, into art.
What if someone had told me, thirty
years ago: If you give up, now,
wanting to be an artist, he might
love you all your life – what would I
have said? I didn't even have an art,
it would come from out of our family's life –
what could I have said: nothing will stop me.
This wonderful poem appears in the collection Stag’s Leap
Latent Book Club Analysis
Sharon Olds is an American poet, (you can read a small bio of her with some great links on
substack) who has eschewed conventional poetic structures for what might be seen as more ‘realist’ takes on life. Born in 1942, with a PhD and a host of accolades, Old’s poetry is deeply personal.We came to this particular poem following its mention in Australian Book Review’s interview with musician Anna Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy referred to this poem in advice she would give as an aspiring artist - to only do it if you need to, but to add that nothing can could stop them.
This theme - persevere, if you have to - is often echoed in literature, and art. Steven Pressfield’s bombastic The War Of Art picks up on this theme. And more realistically, and incisively, Christopher Hitchen’s Letters to a Young Contrarian advises that no one will thank you for your self appointed post as critic. But if you feel you must adopt it, then indeed you must; indeed, you will be compelled to.
To the poem itself. Two themes are immediately apparent in its sonnet-esque structure: creation and destruction. The easel is clearly emblematic of the former. The Fire, the latter. The easel, in its way, teleports you inside the poet’s relationship. Marriage is not mentioned, but certainly hinted at. The easel has outlasted the relationship, but can be easily unscrewed. Disassembling one’s life, determining one’s true desires; that is harder - and certainly, as the poem hints, takes more courage.
Do you detect the hint of repression in your reading? Or what we might now label ‘coercive control?’ We do, it’s certainly there - along with a sense (however justified) of betrayal. The poet doesn’t substantiate these themes - we are left to guess at what may have transpired in the relationship. There must have been some reason to stay, not least for the hinted at family. But one thing is clear, a deep and painful wrong is under the surface, although perhaps not given its clearest outline.
This goes to the heart of the issue of the poem - the imbalance. Clearly the poet’s ‘ex’ (notice the informal use of the word as contrasted with the more formal metre - perhaps to distinguish the anonymous poet from Olds herself, although we know, really, its autobiographical) held the poet back from art. Although getting to perform it ‘himself’ (we assume) having had his family model for him, the poet has the relics of his ‘left behind craft’ and decides to burn it.
Burning is a severe, final, and one-way act. This hints at the determination in the poet’s heart. The poet yearns to be an artist. The ‘ex’ has repressed that desire. Can one hide or suppress one’s true nature? If you can, for how long?
Destruction and desire when juxtaposed point to many things. One that leaps from this poem is that life is fleeting, and is perhaps too short to have our desires suppressed by others.
The poem is raw, and emotional. Olds is not without kindness for her subject, but the realism, relatability, and accessibility of her verse makes it profound to modern readers. As WH Auden did for readers in the early 20th Century, so Olds does for us, demonstrating the universality and contemporaneity of poetry.
The final line is inspirational. The poet has found her calling, the obstacle-paved path notwithstanding. It has come out of her family’s life, and yes, she has lost precious time along the way. But more fundamentally, she realises the artist she is. ‘Nothing’, as she says, ‘will stop me.’
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