Three quick poetry book reviews -- Mary Oliver

I've hemmed and hawed long enough. Just say a kind word about the three poetry books by Mary Oliver, still in my possession from the library, and move on, Anne.

At one point a few years back, probably around the time that Mary Oliver died in 2019 at age 83, I added all of her poetry books, or at least the ones I hadn't read yet, to my TBR list. Many of the books weren't in my library system and when I would search for copies at used book sales, her volumes were never there. She's the most beloved poet in America, no wonder I could never find a used copy of anything by her -- everyone else wanted them, too.

This past April I decided to check to see if the neighboring library system in a nearby county had any of her books and they did. I'd already secured a library card so I could cross the line and check them out. I requested three volumes and they arrived late in April. Time ran out in the month before I got to all three of them. But now that I am finished I wonder how to adequately review them.

The three volumes are:

• Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays. (Beacon Press, 2003)
• White Pine: Poems and Prose Poems. (Harcourt Brace and Company, 1994)
• Thirst: Poems. (Beacon Press, 2006)

In a lot of ways, if you have read any Mary Oliver poems, you know of her focus on nature, living things-- both wild and tame-- and God. Each of these three volumes revealed an aspect of her writing. 

In White Pine I felt a deep sadness in many of her poems. As you may know Mary Oliver had a dreadful childhood where she was sexually abused. She found solace in nature and spending time out of doors. Many of the poems in this volume felt like she was trying to find the salve in nature to heal the wounds from her past. Sometimes she succeeded, I think, as in this poem "At the Lake" where she is reflecting on the life of a fish and then these lines show a shift to self--

 At the Lake

... 

This is, I think,

what holiness is;

the natural world,

where every moment is full

of the passion to keep moving.

Inside every mind

there's a hermit's cave

full of light,

full of snow,

full of concentration.

I've knelt there,

and so have you,

hanging on 

to what you love,

to what is lovely.

Words one can return to again and again to remind oneself that everything will be okay. Usually Mary Oliver's poems start on some point of nature -- a tree, a bird in the pond, a toad beside the road -- but then a shift will occur and now the focus will be on the human condition, on humankind. That is why I want to keep reading, not to learn about toads, but to gain insights into myself.

Almost all of the poems and essays in the next collection, Owls and Other Fantasies. ar about, um..the obvious, birds. Even as I creaked open this volume I asked myself if I really cared enough to read a whole book full of bird poems. It was as if I hadn't read any of her other poems before to even entertain such thoughts.  The very first poem in the collection, "Wild Geese" brought me back from my negativity--

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

     love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on...

What? I was expecting geese and it opened with me and you and everyone. Geese didn't even enter the poem until the 12th line. Surprise! Not an animal poem after all.

In 2006 Mary Oliver published Thirst. It was the first poetry collection she published since the death of her life partner, Mary Malone Cook, who died in 2005. Clearly Oliver was in the throes of deep grief. Thirst is also the most spiritual of the poetry collections I've read of hers up to this point. 

Here in the poem, "The Winter Wood Arrives" the poet talks about stacking wood for winter, but underneath that task is this--

The Winter Wood Arrives

...

             How to keep warm

is always the problem,

     isn't it?

         Of course, there's love.

              And there's prayer.

I don't belittle them,

     and they have warmed me,

         but differently,

              from the heart outwards.

Imagine

     what swirls of frost will cling

         to the windows, what white lawns

              I will look out on

as I rise from morning prayers,

     as I remember love, that leaves yet never leaves...

Heartbreaking yet comforting. It is hard to read a Mary Oliver poem and not feel the tug from each direction. Try reading the poem "After Her Death" without crying, I dare you. You'll see what I mean. In it she finds comfort from small birds who are content after eating small fish. "They open their wings / so easily, and fly. So. It is still / possible."

In the deepest of grief, when it doesn't seem possible, when we find nature shows us how to go on... just spread your wings out and fly. It is possible to go on.

I hope these short reviews have encouraged you to seek out a volume of Mary Oliver's poem today!

-Anne