Take the I Out (Sharon Olds)

I love the idea of this poem by Sharon Olds. Can't you just picture the teacher or writing professor who told her 'just take the I out - it'll make your writing stronger'.

I remember that they said you weren't supposed to put I into any of the essays you wrote for school. As if, what you wrote in that English paper wasn't opinion, but clear-as-day fact. I never had a creative writing teacher say that, but I get the impression that is what spurned her to write this poem.

I like how she using that pronoun to talk about her father and her mother and even the look of the letter itself. I love that the personal pronoun I yields talk about her family and her history and our history (as Americans, as women, as people into writing) because isn't that the way it is? I is not a solitary being, but is wrapped up in all that came before and is around the I. I sees and survives. How could you get rid it?

Favorite line: "But I love the I, steel I-beam / that my father sold"

But I love the I, steel I-beam that my father sold