Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

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I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.” — Mary Oliver

I truly love all of them. Mary Oliver’s words have always read my mind and put my thought into words. Thank you 😊 So many modern nature poets have written well about fish, whether it’s Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘The Fish’ or Ted Hughes’ ‘Pike’, to name just two famous examples. Here, Oliver once again yokes together human feeling with her observations of nature, as the dogfish tear open ‘the soft basins of water’. is a poem I refer to often when I am lost. I fell in love with Mary in the depths of loneliness after my divorce and a corporate soap opera ending. You pulled a lot of my favorites. Booklist, July, 1994, Pat Monaghan, review of A Poetry Handbook, p. 1916; November 15, 1994, Donna Seaman, review of White Pine, p. 574; June 1, 1997, Donna Seaman, review of West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems, p. 1648; June 1, 1998, Donna Seaman, review of Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse, p. 1708; March 15, 1999, Donna Seaman, review of Winter Hours, p. 1279; September 1, 2000, Donna Seaman, review of The Leaf and the Cloud, p. 58; March 15, 2004, Donna Seaman, review of Long Life: Essays and Other Writings, p. 1259.

I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.” What called to me at that reading was a poem from her most recent collection at that time, Thirst: It doesn’t have to be PRAYING It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.” Though her lexis and subjects are deceptively simple, her ideas and overwhelming message are incredibly complex. Such morsels of wisdom may only emerge via scathing self-reflection,

There is a thoughtful poem titled Storage on the joy of uncluttering. Below is a fitting response to ‘things’: How have I never heard of Mary Oliver?! Love these! Being in nature has always made me feel so good. I often think about all the I spent outdoors by myself when I was younger. I loved to go out in the rain, jump in puddles, play in little streams and find clay, ride my bike, or just lay in the grass and listen. Getting up crazy early to watch meteor showers, sitting by bonfires with family, the list goes on! I miss it! Newbies not interested in this whole big book might do well to start with Dog Songs. The charm of the subject of dogs & of the poems, and the mutual devotion (yes) between Oliver and her canine companions touches me, despite that I've never had a desire to own a dog. I also appreciate her idea of meditation, which was lounging under a tree and falling asleep. That it can be refreshing is evident in these lines: No Voyage, and Other Poems, Dent (New York, NY), 1963, expanded edition, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1965.In Tides, Oliver’s keen eye surveyed the sea (‘blue gray green lavender’), old whalebones, white fish spines, barnacle-clad stones, and the ‘piled curvatures’ of seaweeds. There is a pleasing, relaxed contrast to the busyness of the sea pulling away, the gulls walking, seaweeds spilling over themselves. Oliver said, The shortest poem on this list, running to just four short, accessible lines of verse, ‘The Uses of Sorrow’ once again provides us with a concrete image for an abstract emotion: here, sorrow, rather than joy. For TLC straight to your inbox + life-affirming words I don't share anywhere else, just say the word.

Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually. Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us.” Imagine... I have heard the name Tecumseh before but never knew who he was... now, because of a poem, I'm going to go learn some history. From A Thousand Mornings (2012) is a meditative ensemble of ten poems whose dominant subject is water, be it the sea or the River Ganges. Other poems contain Oliver’s reflections on the approach of winter and her own Life Story against the infinite cycle in nature’s diurnal ebb and flow.

Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.” — Mary Oliver, Upstream And consider, always, every day, the determination of the grass to grow despite the unending obstacles.” Let’s conclude this selection of Mary Oliver’s best poems with one of her best-known and best-loved: ‘The Journey’. This is a poem about undertaking the difficult but rewarding journey of saving the one person you can save: yourself. We discuss this poem in more depth here. This is a beautiful collection of poetry from Mary Oliver. I finished it with a tear in my eye knowing there won't be anything more from her. She just passed away this year. There is something about her poetry that is comforting to me. I'm sorry she is gone.