Sharon Olds

Poet Sharon Olds. Her new collection of poems is The Unswept Room. She has a number of previous collections, including Satan Says and The Dead and the Living. Olds was the New York State Poet Laureate from 1998 to 2000. She teaches poetry workshops in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University.

Olds reads a poem about her father, centered around his bed -- the site of his romances and, ultimately, his passing.

Olds' writing is confessional and personal, but she says her work is not necessarily autobiographical. She wonders why readers have the desire to separate truth from invention in her work -- and the work of other women poets in particular.