Rite of Passage

“Rite of Passage” by Sharon Olds is a poem originally published in her 1984 collection The Dead and the Living. The poem later appeared in 2004’s Strike Sparks: Selected Poems, 1980-2002. Often known for its Confessional style, Olds’s work draws on her family life, both as a child and as a mother, to make broader statements about contemporary society. The setting of Olds’s “Rite of Passage” is a first-grade child’s birthday party, and the speaker and mother of the birthday boy—likely Olds herself, given her regular use of autobiography—describes the group of young boys and their conversations and behavior. Like much of Olds’s work, the poem uses a scene from ordinary daily life to make greater observations about human nature—in this case, male behavior and the ways in which violence and dominance can show up very early in life. Olds uses the personal scene to explore the themes of Violence and Masculinity, Loss of Innocence, and A Mother’s Influence in society at large.

Poet Biography

Sharon Olds was born in 1942 in San Francisco and raised in Berkeley, California. She often discusses her parents and upbringing in her work, including the strict Calvinist religion that Olds was often at odds with.