Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

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One of the ironies of this was that I lived in Oliver’s birthplace of Maple Heights, Ohio for nine years. In a Times essay disparaging an issue of the magazine O devoted to poetry, in which Oliver was interviewed by Maria Shriver, the critic David Orr wrote of her poetry that “one can only say that no animals appear to have been harmed in the making of it.

But for her fans—among whom I, unashamedly, count myself—it offers a welcome opportunity to consider her body of work as a whole. Poetry is wonderfully expressive, and features everything from the most intimate of stories to the grandest of adventures. 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. Only a poet with her sensitivity would have contemplated what it meant for the fish who were ‘full of fish happiness’ one moment and then became the herons’ supper the next. Oliver’s poems have mostly been inspired by her long walks within the woods and shoreline of Provincetown, Mass.In Invitation, Oliver invited us to linger just to listen to the ‘musical battle’ of the goldfinches because their ‘melodious striving’ revealed the ‘sheer delight and gratitude.

Yet the dominant note is the wonder of the world around her that makes me wonder as to how much I miss on daily walks. Devotions is a stunning, definitive and carefully curated collection featuring work from over fifty years of writing - from Oliver's very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through to her last collection, Felicity, published in 2015. Her works published in the UK include Blue Horses, A Thousand Mornings, Felicity and two volumes of New and Selected Poems. Holly Prado of the Los Angeles Times Book Review also applauded Oliver’s original voice, writing that American Primitive “touches a vitality in the familiar that invests it with a fresh intensity.Oliver wrote with deep affection for her dogs and devoted a handful to Percy ‘our new dog, named for the beloved poet. this is a big collection of some of the best poems by mary oliver, i would say very much worth getting in your collection. the luminous writing provides respite from our crazy world and demonstrates how mindfulness can define and transform a life, moment by moment, poem by poem. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches and power in the world.

Reading the poems is like going on a nature ramble with her and seeing what we often take for granted with new eyes. The poems are most often calm and thoughtful, echoing a serenity of nature and gazing in wonderment at the marvelous possibilities of existence. This would make a great book for a friend going through a loss, or hardship, or someone who just enjoys time in nature. Instead of thinking about it as only a month-long celebration, why not think of it as a 30-day introduction to a lifetime of joy, heartbreak, passion and exhalation?

Mary Oliver had nothing to prove; she led a happy life in beautiful places with her lifelong partner, and was celebrated, decorated and adored.

The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.Oliver might not be for everyone due to their traditional feel, but I feel everyone can find something in this collection. The joke falls flat, considering how much of Oliver’s work revolves around the violence of the natural world. Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from one boot to another—why don’t you get going?