On The Subway The poem that I have chosen to write and analyze is "On The Subway" by Sharon Olds. It was written in 1987 and is in one of Olds three books that she has had published called "The Gold Cell." The other books that Olds has written are "Satan Days"(1980) and "The Dead and the Living"(1983). Olds, who was born in San Francisco, has won a National Book Critics Circle Award for her poetry. The poem is about the speaker of the poem in a subway car sitting across from a boy that frightens her a little bit. She does not know the boy and is a little leery about who he is and what he could do to her. This is a good poem about everyday