Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Publishing Group (2020), Edition: Reprint, 480 pages
Description
"Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Identified as "far and away, this country's best selling poet" by Dwight Garner, she now returns with a stunning and definitive collection of her writing from the last fifty years. Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver's work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity, published in 2015."--
User reviews
LibraryThing member m.belljackson
I bought DEVOTIONS for my daughter, but found too much death and animal violence.
So much 'I, I, I" and too many depressing images.
And yet, I've found many poems in between all that to copy out and save...
So much 'I, I, I" and too many depressing images.
And yet, I've found many poems in between all that to copy out and save...
LibraryThing member thornton37814
Although I purchased this volume last year, I did not read it right away. I wanted to find time to savor the works of Mary Oliver whose work I love. Her death last month prompted me to pick up the volume. While Mary's words rarely rhyme, she conveys beautiful thoughts and scenes in poetic language.
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The volume contains poems collected from works published in the 1960s to 2015. I will revisit this volume many times in the years to come. My only criticism pertains to her affinity for including snakes in her poetry. Show Less
LibraryThing member CurrerBell
We covered Mary Oliver in an adult Sunday school session in honor of her death. All I knew of her was the name, and so I bought this particular volume since it's a "best of" compilation with the selections chosen by Oliver herself. While I'm not crazy about Oliver (after a while there's a certain
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"sameness" to her), the anthology does contain some quite good numbers; and, considering that this is a "best of" compilation assembled by the poet herself, this particular volume/edition is probably the best overall introduction to Mary Oliver. Hence 4**** Show Less
LibraryThing member jphamilton
After I finished this hefty collection of the selected poems of Mary Oliver, I find my opinion of her work remains the same. Certainly, she writes impressively about the natural world, but her writings are far too religious for my mind. As an atheist of at least five decades, her constant mentions
I appreciate her writings about nature, but I always feel a certain distance from her expressions and style. Many times, her words seem to head toward either something too simple or sweet. And while there are beautiful lines here and there, and an occasional poem that works quite nicely, having so many of her poems pulled together in one place seems to reinforce that I just don’t hold her in such high esteem as many of my customers did in our bookstores.
It all goes to that simple line: You can’t please all the people all the time.
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of god, of owing it all to god, and that god is in everything, leaves me cold and uninvolved. I’m one of those nonbelievers that gets put off by “god talk” very quickly—it’s just not a cult I belong to. I love and admire the natural world, but I don’t attribute its magnificence to any mythological beings. I appreciate her writings about nature, but I always feel a certain distance from her expressions and style. Many times, her words seem to head toward either something too simple or sweet. And while there are beautiful lines here and there, and an occasional poem that works quite nicely, having so many of her poems pulled together in one place seems to reinforce that I just don’t hold her in such high esteem as many of my customers did in our bookstores.
It all goes to that simple line: You can’t please all the people all the time.
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LibraryThing member steve02476
I’m not a big poetry reader, but I like to read it sometimes. I liked this collection a lot, especially the attention she pays to animals and the outdoors in general. It was interesting that the poems in this book spanning her career were printed in reverse chronological order, so it felt like I
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was going backward in time. Show Less
LibraryThing member markm2315
MO's poetry is well-written, straight-forward, and occasionally moves me, e.g. her poems about her dogs, but I'm just not someone who is looking for poetry that's mostly about seeing God in the voice of a thrush.
LibraryThing member heggiep
I'm vaguely aware that many of the Guardians of Poesy aren't fans of Oliver but I enjoyed this collection. Mostly nature poems, I read a few a day and found them soothing and, at the same time, insightful.
LibraryThing member ladycato
Gorgeous, inspirational poems. I will be reading this book again and again, I think.
LibraryThing member wvlibrarydude
I will never get tired of reading her poetry.
Physical description
480 p.; 8.36 inches
ISBN
0399563261 / 9780399563263