'' The Dead and the Living '' was published in February 1984 . This collection is divided into two sections , " Poems for the Dead " and " Poems for the Living " . The first section begins with poems about global injustices . These injustices include the Turkish Massacre of the Armenians during WWI , the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot , the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi , and even the death of Marilyn Monroe . Olds ' book '' The Wellspring '' ( 1996 ) , shares with her previous work the use of raw language and startling images to convey truths about domestic and political violence and family relationships . A reviewer for '' The New York Times '' hailed her poetry for its vision : " Like Whitman , Ms. Olds sings the body in celebration of a power stronger than political oppression . " Alicia Ostriker noted Olds traces the " erotics of family love and pain . " Ostriker continues : " In later collections , Olds writes of an abusive childhood , in which miserably married parents bully and punish and silence her . She writes , too , of her mother 's apology " after 37 years " , a moment when " The sky seemed to be splintering , like a window / someone is bursting into or out of " Olds ' work is anthologized in over 100 collections , ranging from literary/poetry textbooks to special collections . Her poetry has been translated into seven languages for international publications . She has been published in Beloit Poetry Journal . She was the New York State Poet Laureate for 1998 – 2000
Turkish Massacre of the Armenians
Armenian Genocide
Sharon Olds