Stag's Leap

Summary

Written in the aftermath of her husband's decision to leave their thirty-year marriage for another woman, this sequence moves through shock, grief, rage, and a fierce, hard-won self-possession with unflinching physical and emotional honesty. Olds writes the confessional poem at full stretch—nothing is softened, but nothing is merely self-indulgent—and the effect is of great intimacy placed in the service of universal experience. She was the first American woman to win the prize.