"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, …showed first 75 words of 791 total…

…showed last 75 words of 791 total…hand" come alive in the reader's mind. The "corpses" are no longer merely part of the background they no longer merely set the stage for the poem's action. They become the action. The corpses are instilled with life through the voice of the poem. The "naked calves hard as corded wood" calls the reader to remember they were once as alive as the "tree's roots" and the "cocoon" waiting for the "new life inside" "prepared."