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""Mary Oliver moves by instinct, faith, and determination. She is among our finest poets, and still growing."-Alicia Ostriker, The Nation" ""Mary Oliver's poetry is fine and deep; it reads like a blessing. Her special gift is to connect us with our sources in the natural world, its beauties and terrors and mysteries and consolations."-Stanley Kunitz" ""One would have to reach back perhaps to [John] Clare or Christopher Smart to safely cite a parallel to Oliver's lyricism."-David Barber, Poetry" ""One music in Oliver's writing is unmistakable. Her poetry can be read as the best of the real lyrics we have these days, and it's no surprise that she's already won a Pulitzer Prize for it, as well as many other honors."Los Angeles Times" ""Joy is not made to be a crumb," writes Mary Oliver, and certainly joy abounds in her new book of poetry and prose poems. Swan, her twentieth volume, shows us that, though we may be "made out of the dust of stars," we are of the world she captures here so vividly: the acorn that hides within it an entire tree; the wings of the swan like the stretching light of the river; the frogs singing in the shallows; the mockingbird dancing in air. Swan is Oliver's tribute to "the mortal way" of desiring and living in the world, to which the poet is renowned for having always been "totally loyal."" "As the Los Angeles Times noted, innumerable readers go to Oliver's poetry "for solace, regeneration and inspiration:' Few poets express the immense complexities of human experience as skillfully, or capture so memorably the smallest nuances. Speaking, for example, of stones, she writes, "the little ones you can/hold in your hands, their heartbeats / so secret, so hidden it may take years / before, finally, you hear them:' It is no wonder Oliver ranks, according to the Weekly Standard, "among the finest poets the English language has ever produced.""--BOOK JACKET.… (more)
User reviews
As is the case with every collection of hers I have read, picking examples is never easy. Here is one about her beloved pet, Percy, titled “Percy Wakes Me (Fourteen)”: “Percy wakes me and I am not ready. / He has slept all night under the covers. / Now he’s eager for action: a walk, then breakfast. / So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen counter / where he is not supposed to be. / How wonderful you are, I say. How clever if you / needed me, / to wake me. / He thought he would hear a lecture and deeply / his eyes began to shine. / He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments. / He squirms and squeals; he has done something / that he needed / and now he hears that it is okay. / I scratch his ears, I turn him over / and touch him everywhere. He is / wild with the okayness of it. Then we walk, then / he has breakfast, and he is happy. / This is a poem about Percy. / This is a poem about more than Percy. / Think about it” (13). To me, the sign of a true pet lover is talking to the pets. Guilty!
Another interesting poem is about a teacher. Oliver writes in “The Poet Dreamed of the Classroom”: I dreamed / I stood up in class / and I said aloud: // Teacher, / why is algebra important? // Sit down, he said. // Then I dreamed / I stood up / and I said: // Teacher, I’m weary of the turkeys / that we have to draw every fall. / May I draw a fox instead? // Sit down, he said. // Then I dreamed / I stood up once more and said: // Teacher, / my heart is falling asleep / and it wants to wake up. / It needs to be outside. // Sit down, he said” (21). Reminds me a little of my days in elementary school, except I wanted to read.
Here are a couple of short poems. The first is “Wind in the Pines”: “Is it true that the wind / streaming especially in fall / through the pines / is saying nothing, nothing at all, // or is it just that I don’t yet know the language?” (28). I have spent many days wandering through stands of oak, pine, hemlock, and Douglas firs, I always imagined different sounds for the wind. I don’t think it was the trees, it was all in my mind. And finally, “How Perfectly” calls to mind our own rose garden, which bloomed wonderfully this spring. “How perfectly / and neatly / opens the pink rose // this bright morning, / the sun warm / on my shoulders, // its heat / on the opening petals. / Possibly // it is the smallest, / the least important event / at this moment // in the whole world. / Yet I stand there, / utterly happy” (4).
Mary Oliver is a splendid poet with her short, “skinny,” Zen-like poems. I believe we are poetry soul mates! 5 stars.
--Jim, 5/29/16