On the subway
On the subwayOn The Subway
The poem that I have chosen to write and analyze is "On The Subway" by Sharon Olds. It was written in 1987 and is in one of Olds three books that she has had published called "The Gold Cell." The other books that Olds has written are "Satan Days"(1980) and "The Dead and the Living"(1983). Olds, who was born in San Francisco, has won a National Book Critics Circle Award for her poetry. The poem is about the speaker of the poem in a subway car sitting across from a boy that frightens her a little bit. She does not know the boy and is a little leery about who he is and what he could do to her. This is a good poem about everyday life in the real life that could happen to anybody and contains many questions that many people ask their-selves everyday.
I chose this poem because I liked the way that it was similar to everyday life in the real world. There is the speaker of the poem who is on a subway in the city and is a frightened by the appearance of another boy on the subway with her. In this entry it does not specifically state how the speaker is and wether it was a incident that happened to the poet. The speaker talks about
John H. Cross
English 102-03
September 22, 1999
Essay 1
how the boy's appearance frightens her. She talks about his big feet with dark black sneakers with white laces and how they looked like a set intentional scars. Olds talked about what he looks like when he sees him, "He has the casual cold look of a mugger, alert under hooded lids" (7-9). She says that he is wearing red, which makes her thing of the blood inside of one's body. The speaker has on her black fur coat which makes for an inviting target.
In the middle of the poem, the speaker questions who has the power between her and the boy in the subway. She says "...I don't know if I am in his power-......or if he is in my power"(14-18). She is saying that she is getting all worried about this boy that is in the subway with her, but she does not even know him or he does not know her. For all she knows he is the nicest young man alive. When she...
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