Sharon Olds’s intensely immediate, emotionally keen work, which graphically depicts family life as well as global political events, has made her one of contemporary poetry’s leading voices and has led to prestigious awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle Award. The poet Billy Collins identifies her as “a poet of sex and the psyche” and adds, “Sharon Olds is infamous for her subject matter alone…but her closer readers know her as a poet of constant linguistic surprise.” This series of poetry readings is organized and hosted by Stephen Yenser, poet and professor at UCLA and author of Blue Guide and A Boundless Field: American Poetry at Large, and is co-sponsored by the UCLA English Department, the Friends of English, and the UCLA Department of Cultural and Recreational Affairs.