Free Blog 1: The Exceptional Heroic Body

In her poem, The Language of the Brag, Sharon Olds expresses her desire to be as strong, as heroic, and as courageous as a man. Her idea of strength is based on what she believes Americans say that strength is: masculinity, the hero, and a male figure who embraces the John Wayne type figure. Strength is a man who lets nothing stand in his way. She states, “I have wanted some epic use for my excellent body, /some heroism, some American achievement” in order to prove to herself and to men that she is also strong.

            Sharon Olds realizes, however, that she can never embrace what Americans believe to be American strength because the American ideals of strength are based on masculinity. She admires that strength that men have to offer and while she calls them “boys” she has still, “stood by the sandlot and watched the boys play.” She knows that they have attributes to be admired but what she goes on to say is how she found the strength that she has to offer the world.

            In the last stanza of the poem, Sharon shares that for a woman, “giving birth” is what makes us strong. She has a personal message to those men she believes proclaimed of bragged of their American strength, telling Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, “I have done this thing, /I and the other women the exceptional act with the exceptional heroic body.” Sharon, as a woman, not only has found her strength in being a woman, she has also discovered a strength that no other man can have. She has the ability, the courage, the pride, in giving birth. She can produce life. It is something that no man could ever do. And she proclaims to the world, “I am putting my proud American boast / right here with the others.” Not only is she a strong woman, but she tells Whitman and Ginsberg that she is a strong AMERICAN woman.

This poem embodies the idea of beating down the American made ideal of what it means to be strong. In the past, strength was for men. Sharon is now saying that as a woman, not only are we strong, but we have a strength that a man can never relate to or reproduce. I feel like this idea of Olds is completely different from the texts we have been reading in the sense that most of the women we have read about have not been able to find that feminine strength. Instead Clare, Violet, and others have had to rely on outside strengths to survive. These women have nothing to brag about. Sharon has found her bragging rights. 

Olds, Sharon. "Language of the Brag". Satan Says. 1980.