Photograph of the Girl

Photograph of the Girl
Sharon Olds

The girl sits on the hard gorund,
the dry pan of russia, in the drought
of 1921 stunned,
eyes closed, mouth open,
raw hot wind blowing
sand in her face. Hunger and puberty are
taking her together. She leans on a sack,
layers of clothes fluttering in the heat,
the new radius of her arm curved.
She cannot be beautiful,
 but she is starving. Each day she grows thinner, and her bones
grow longer, porous. The caption says she is going to starve to death that winter
with millions of others. Deep in her body
the ovaries let out her first eggs,
golden as drops of rain.

            
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Response to the poem-

                     This poem is really strong because the poet studied the picture really closely. She notices details in the photograph like how hungry the girl is and how sad she looks.
           
                      She also uses lots of simuli "dry pan russia" to a drought. She tries to include evreything she can get of the photo like the date and location of the drought and puts it into the poem . She even has the caption from the photo " The caption says she is going to starve to death that winter with millions of others". That line also can give a clue to the reader that alot of people are also starving not just the girl and they are really suffering badly from the drought.
              
                     She uses powerful words like "golden as drops of rain" to show that the girl is in her puberty , and that also means that the girl in the photograph is really young because this is her first time getting her period.