Poet Sharon Olds received the Academy of American Poets’ 2016 Wallace Stevens Award. Given annually to recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry, the award was established in 1994, and carries a $100,000 stipend. Recipients are chosen by the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors. Mark Doty, a member of the Board, has said that “her poems, in their evocation of trauma or desire, in their grief and joy and comedy, have opened new possibilities for poetry in our time. She is an American master, and a national treasure.”
Sharon Olds is the author of ten previous books of poetry, including the Pulitzer–winning STAG’S LEAP in 2012. Her new collection of poetry, ODES, addresses and embodies many aspects of love and gender, opening with the powerful and tender “Ode to the Hymen.”
