Devotions

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Subjects like these reveal much about the way Oliver sees the world, and can therefore be considered personal poems. However, the poems in these earlier sections of the book share very few details of the poet’s life. Instead, these poems deal with the question of how to live well in general, and what it means to be human. With a few notable exceptions, the poems in the first half of the book do not offer more detail about the poet’s life than the name of her dogs and the fact that she teaches poetry. Mid-way the book, however, the poem “Flare” takes on the subject of Oliver’s difficult relationship with her parents. Rumi said, There is no proof of the soul. But isn’t the return of spring and how it springs up in our hearts a pretty good hint?” There is a thoughtful poem titled Storage on the joy of uncluttering. Below is a fitting response to ‘things’: In an extraction of eleven poems from her collection of new poems from 2005, Oliver bade us pay attention to the natural world in every season. As she contemplated her role as a poet, she took inspiration from the ease with which nature eloquently declared its charms.

Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver - AbeBooks Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver - AbeBooks

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,

acceptance of one’s darkness, and the will to strive for unflinching compassion above all else. Her Of course, much has been said of Oliver's work—that it is too simple, or too naïve, or that its cadence derives not from metre but from a sense of harmony that many of us have been too dulled to attempt to feel. The critics can relax: Oliver herself did not want to live forever, only to be remembered if at all; as she says in one of the poems included in this collection; as "a bride married to amazement". And that she was. That we all can feel when we go out seeking the world through her words. From where I stand, Devotions is a wonderful place to start. and entwine the outer world with our inner worlds, where our place among “the family of things” is ascertained only through the intersection of the physical and cerebral realms. Central to her perspective is the interconnectedness of all things, regardless of their tenuous association. The bulk Poetry can describe many a feeling with astounding accuracy, but there is no describing poetry. Instead, I will attach here one of my favourite pieces from this volume, its very own, very best review: To Begin With, The Sweet Grass Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a little sunshine, a little rain. Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from one boot to another—why don’t you get going? For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees. And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money, I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.”

Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver - Goodreads

A timely reminder that we can opt to be softer and kinder when our natural bent is to be just the reverse. Growing up in Ohio, Oliver said in one of her rare interviews that she ‘ felt those first important connections, those first experiences being made with the natural world rather than with the social world.’ Perhaps for this reason much of her poetry uses the natural world as the lens through which she peers into the human heart and mind. At 17, Oliver would befriend Norma, the sister to poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and spend most of a decade organizing St. Vincent Millay’s papers while working for her estate. She attended Ohio State University and Vassar College without finishing a degree, but once her first collection of poetry came out her career as a poet was well under way and she would later teach while working as a poet-in residence at several colleges before finishing her career as Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College. Her collections are also highly decorated, winning the Pulitzer Prize for American Primitive as well as the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems While at the St. Vincent Millay estate she would meet Molly Malone Cook, who would become her life-long partner as well as agent until Molly passed in 2005. Molly had previously owned a bookstore where she employed a young John Waters before he became a celebrated filmmaker and the couple maintained a friendship with him for the remainder of their lives. Though my favorite anecdote is that, while working as Mary’s agent, whenever a call came in for her, Molly would just pretend to be her on the phone and eventually editors just came to accept her as the same as actually speaking to Mary. More room in your heart for love, for the trees! For the birds who own nothing—the reason they can fly.”

Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.”