"Leningrad Cemetery, Winter of 1941" takes the reader into the "Leningrad Cemetery" to see the "icy winter" with its "dead" that "could not be buried." Sharon Olds paints dramatic pictures, using powerful imagery that forces the reader to see the despair of having to use "coffin wood for fuel." The poem shows the reader the "dead," the casualties of the "siege," and the reckless loss of human life. Olds delivers her images with words deftly chosen, striking at the reader's mind, causing it to wonder at the necessity of wanton waste of lives. The figurative language used in the poem is very dramatic but the last few lines of the poem bestow the images with emotions. The "hand" reaches for life, wanting vitality and life so desperately, that it is willing to come alive again, even in the dismal "winter of 1941."…
