Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Find a quote from page 56.
This is the book I'm highlighting right now---
Title: Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Book Beginning: from "I Wake Close to Morning"
Why do people keep asking to see
God's identity papers
when the darkness opening into morning
is more than enough?...
Friday 56: from "I Worried"
...Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
Comment: Mary Oliver, poet, died today. In one of her obituaries it was mentioned that never has a poet sold more poetry that rarely mentioned other human beings. Sometimes she was described as a recluse because she gave so few interviews, but actually she just wanted to let her poetry speak for her. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1983 for American Primitive and the National Book Award for poetry in 1992 for New and Selected Poems. It is because of Mary Oliver that I love poetry and I go to her poems over and over again when I need a little solace or should spend a moment outside myself. Devotions is a compilation of over 200 of her favorite poems going all the way back to 1963, when she published her first volume of poetry. I'll let Mary Oliver get the last word with a portion of her poem, "When Death Comes":
