A Thousand Mornings

by Mary Oliver

Status

Available

Call number

811.54

Collections

Publication

Publisher Unknown

Description

In A THOUSAND MORNINGS, Mary Oliver returns to the imagery that has come to define her life's work, transporting us to the marshland and coastline of her beloved home, Provincetown, Massachusetts. In these pages, Oliver shares the wonder of dawn, the grace of animals, and the transformative power of attention. Whether studying the leaves of a tree or mourning her adored dog, Percy, she is ever patient in her observations and open to the teachings contained in the smallest of moments.

Original publication date

2012

User reviews

LibraryThing member yeldabmoers
Mary Oliver's collection of poems, A Thousand Mornings, published this fall, is a poignant meditation on nature and the self. It reminded me of the nature writings of Annie Dillard, the essays of Thoreau and Emerson, and the poems of Whitman and the Transcendentalists. Oliver could be an adopted
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poet of that movement.

The poems are almost naked, sometimes abrupt, but if nature could speak, this is what she could say. Oliver is certainly awed by her surroundings, the sea, animals and the spirituality of nature. I think the best way to depict her style is to include one of her poems.

I Go Down to the Shore

I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.

I had never heard of Mary Oliver before reading this little black and grey book of poems. I felt ignorant for not having heard of her. She is one of the most renowned poets of our time, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a recipient of the National Book Award.

Pithy and stark, her new collection is a quick read, but you find yourself reading each poem over and over again. They are unlike anything I've ever read, and I highly recommend them to other readers of nature and spirituality.
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LibraryThing member southernbooklady
I love the ideas in Oliver's poetry, but her language rarely has the same vivaciousness or beauty as her sense of vision:

Sometimes I spend all day trying to count
the leaves on a single tree. To do this I
have to climb branch by branch and
write down the numbers in a little book.
So, I suppose, from
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their point of view,
it's reasonable that my friends say: what
foolishness! She's got her head in the clouds
again.

But it's not. Of course I have to give up,
but by then I'm half crazy with the wonder
of it--the abundance of the leaves, the
quietness of the branches, the hopelessness
of my effort. And I am in that delicious
and important place, roaring with laughter,
full of earth-praise.

"Full of earth praise" is a good description of the poetry of Mary Oliver. She homes in on moments of it in everything from a bird chattering in a shrub to a caught fish, to a tree, defoliated by a storm leafing out again out of season. (That poem, "Hurricane" resonated with me because I have lived through many a hurricane and seen the Bradford pears drop all their wind-desiccated leaves in the aftermath, and burst into bloom in September, fully seven months out of season).

And I love her earth praise, I do. That quiet wonder that seems to overtake her at the smallest thing. I have this idea of her standing out in the open, arms spread towards the wind and the weather and the fullness of life, taking it all into herself.

But her words are not as beautiful as her vision. She sometimes calls them prayers, but prayers are often very beautiful. Mary Oliver's poetry is....accessible. But it is not...gorgeous. Where it comes close, the thought becomes a little trite:

This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to

where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else

which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.

it's like you can have the idea, or the vision, but not both.

My favorite poem in the collection was called "Hum, Hum"; which I won't reproduce here because the spacing it important, but it is about how the music of the bees, the music of live, works its way into her even when life has been something that must be survived, rather than lived.

It would be wrong to say I don't like the poetry of Mary Oliver--I do, oh so very much. She writes about things I see and feel when I'm walking in my own garden, or along my own bit of sea marsh. But while her poetry might give me a feeling of quiet comfort and pleasure, it doesn't make me shiver, and it doesn't make me gasp in shock. And it almost never makes me think "that is the most beautiful line I have ever read."
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LibraryThing member EdGoldberg
Mary Oliver and I seem to have one thing in common: we both love the ocean, as you can see in her short poem, The Poet Compares Human Nature to the Ocean From Which We Came:

The ocean can do craziness, it can do smooth
it can lie down like silk breathing
or toss havoc shoreward; it can give

gifts or
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withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth
like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can
sweet-talk entirely. As I can too,

and so, no doubt, can you, and you.

Or the poem Tides:

Every day the sea
blue gray green lavender
pulls away leaving the harbor's
dark cobbled undercoat.

But that is apparently where our similarity ends, Mary's and mine, because she can put into words those feelings whereas I can't. I'm not a poetry lover, generally, but Susan and I were introduced to Mary Oliver via a Beth Kephart book and Susan became an avid fan. I like simple poetry, short poetry, poetry that conveys thoughts and feelings in a sparsity of words. Maybe that's why I like Mary Oliver.

In A Thousand Mornings, she discusses age, life, joyfulness, sorrow, dissatisfaction such as In Traveling to Beautiful Places she says

...But it's late for all of us,
in truth the only ship there is
is the ship we are all on
burning the world as we go.

Whatever it is about the way Mary Oliver expresses her thoughts and feelings, she seems, in many ways, to have captured mine, as well. See if Ms. Oliver captures your feelings.
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LibraryThing member Crazymamie
So I just picked this up from the library today - I had requested it for next month's poetry read for Mark's AAC. I took it out to the deck with me to just read one or two of the poems and get a feel for it, but I ended up just reading straight through. Really lovely collection of poetry mostly
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themed on nature. I loved the final lines of "Hurricane" which read:

"For some things there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me."

Probably my favorite was "I Happened to be Standing", but I also loved "The Poet Compares Human Nature to the Ocean From Which We Came". It's short, so here it is for you:

"The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth,
it can lie down silk breathing
or toss havoc shoreward; it can give

gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth
like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can
sweet-talk entirely. As I can too,

and so, no doubt, can you, and you."
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LibraryThing member bell7
Mary Oliver writes free verse poetry that has a lot of flow but not a lot of rhyme. Many of the poems are reflections of nature, sometimes almost a worshipful mood. I like nature, but not quite to that extent, so I found myself reading against the grain at times. But I enjoyed her vivid imagery and
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straightforward approach. Sure, I had to look up a word or a phrase here and there to make sure I understood, but I didn't feel like the poet was trying to be obscure or hard to understand the way some poetry can be. One of my favorite poems was "The Mockingbird," the one in the collection that I could read over and over. Here's just a piece of it: "for he is the thief of other sounds-- / whistles and truck brakes and dry hinges / plus all the songs / of other birds in his neighborhood; // mimicking and elaborating, / he sings with humor and bravado, / so I have to wait a long time / for the softer voice of his own life // to come through."
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LibraryThing member amillion
I've never been a big poetry reader, but I found this collection particularly intriguing. There were several poems, "The Mockingbird", "The Moth, The Mountains, The Rivers", "Green, Green is My Sister's House", "Extending the Airport Runway", "The Poet Compares Human Nature to the Ocean From Which
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We Came", and "The Man Who Has Many Answers" I found to be very personally poignant. Oliver's poetry is very accessible. I'm heading to the library for more...
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LibraryThing member dukefan86
I enjoy Mary Oliver's poetry so much! This is a great collection. I especially like how she describes things in nature.
LibraryThing member SarahWagner503
Amazing, beautiful prose. Mary Oliver never disappoints.
LibraryThing member tangledthread
Mary Oliver's poetry always strikes a chord with me. This collection is very satisfying.
LibraryThing member bhutton
Sometimes something comes along at exactly the right time to explain and describe what you are going through. As I move into the next phase of life this collection helps put structure and words what I am experiencing. One of the first collections of poetry that has truly moved me.
LibraryThing member JudyCroome
My first exposure to Mary Oliver's poetry. I enjoyed the poems, especially "The Moth, The Mountains, The Rivers","Hum, Hum" and "The Man Who Has Many Answers." Will be reading more of her poems in future.
LibraryThing member lasvegasbookie
I love Mary Oliver! She speaks to my soul, my subconscious. She makes me pay attention, listen.
LibraryThing member whatsmacksaid
I loved every bit of it. Highly recommend.
LibraryThing member jamestomasino
Mary Oliver's poetry is like stepping into a garden on a spring day and taking a deep breath. It doesn't fix everything but in some ways it really does.
LibraryThing member bookworm12
I am not a poetry person, but so many people told me to try Mary Oliver. This was my first foray into her work and I absolutely loved it. Her observations about the beauty of simple moments in nature around her took my breath away.

“The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of
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information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.

While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.”
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LibraryThing member mariannem85
Just brilliant
LibraryThing member JRobinW
I love Mary Oliver's poetry so much I rushed through this book. Now I will go back and read it more slowly to savor her meanings and rhythms. I have it rated "really liked" it now, but may change it to amazing when the poems have time to sink into my depths.
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