As in her other volumes of poetry, Olds is a masterful documenter of the flesh. No living American poet writes as authentically about the body as she does -- the exquisite descriptions of sexuality (First Sex is particularly good), motherhood, and aging are not easily forgotten. In my favorite, California Swimming Pool, she captures adolescence so succinctly and alluringly that my own experience of 13 came rocketing back into my consciousness with an intensity which shocked me. Of all her volumes of poetry, this is my favorite.