Strike Poem by gershon hepner

Strike and shine and deepen, spread,
where others stand in silence speak,
what they cannot discover seek,
write what no one yet has read.
Spreading as you deepen, strike
the chords that resonate like gongs,
the symbols crashing in your songs
revealing what your life is like
to those who cause your words to shine
by hearing nuances you’ve hidden
within the very lines you've written,
and find the twists within the twine
that match the whorls of their own hearts
like patterns of a fingerprint
which, with their resonances, hint
at secrets in their hidden parts.
Spread yourself so you can shine,
and be a light to others like
a lover who in just one line
finds gold in you you could not strike.


Dinitia Smith writes about Sharon Olds in the NYT, September 9,1999, in 'The Examined Life, Without Punctuation'. Glyn Maxwell wrote about her autobiography that its material 'strikes, shines, deepens, spreads'. Galway Kinnell, a poet colleague at New York University, says: 'She seems to speak where others are silent.' He compares her to Emily Dickinson, a poet for whom 'inner experience is primary'. Dinitia Smith writes:

'They're narratives, ' she said of her poems. Ms. Olds paused, and then she added, almost wistfully, 'I wonder if they're art.'

9/9/99