Each day a new draft or fragment

Colors increase at Fullersburg woods

From Best American poem 2018. 

Olds writes: "'Silver Spoon Ode' was one of the odes that came along during the year or two after my book Odes was published. It was written, I think, in June 2016, in the Sierra Nevada, at the writing conference I've been going to for something like thirty years. Each morn-ing, each poet there, including the staff poets, brings a new first draft, or fragment, or something new, to one of the five tables with one of the five staff poets as part of the circle. We don't suggest revisions, but try to describe what we see as the strengths of the piece.

"The first line, I remember, first occurred halfway through another poem-then I had the idea (the idea had me) that it might have a poem of its own. And this was a gathering of writers wanting to push ourselves beyond our usual limits-which helped me notice my complaining and bragging. And that noticing called up Lucille-wise woman, wild woman—and the poem was handed to her, and she finished it for me.

Here's the poem, which I'm not especially drawn to:

Silver Spoon Ode

Sharon Olds (2018)

I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth

and a silver knife, and a silver fork.

I would complain about it—the spoon was not greasy,

it tasted like braces, my shining access

to cosmetic enhancement. And I complained about

the taste of my fillings in my very expensive

mouth, as if only my family was paying 

where did I think the rich got

their money but from everyone else?

My mother beat me in 4/4 time,

and I often, now, rant to her beat—I wear

her rings as if I killed her for them, as my

people killed, and climbed up over

the dead. And I sound as if I am bragging

about it. I was born with a spoon instead of a

tongue in my mouth—dung spoon,

diamond spoon. And who would I be

to ask forgiveness? I would be a white girl.

And I hear Miss Lucille, as if on the mountain

where I'd stand beside her, and brush away the insects,

and sometimes pick one off her, sometimes

by the wings, and toss it away. And Lucille

is saying, to me, You have asked for enough,

and been given in excess. And that thing in your mouth,

open your mouth and let that thing go,

let if fly back into the mine where it was brought

up from the underworld at the price of

lives, beloved lives. And now,

enough, Shar, now a little decent silence.