Archive for the ‘Mary Oliver’ Category

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Attentive to and delighting in her surroundings, Mary Oliver lived a life writing astonishing poetry

January 15, 2024

In her poem, Sometimes (pt 4 of 7), Mary Oliver teaches us how to live a life — especially as a poet — in 3 short, powerful sentences. 

4.
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
“Sometimes” by Mary Oliver from Red Bird. © Beacon Press, 2008.

Mary Oliver exemplified this essential message in her poem, Mindful. 

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
“Mindful” by Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early. © Beacon Press, 2005.

Another example of this theme is in this earlier post: Mary Oliver’s poem, Praying, is a lesson on attention, receptivity, listening and writing.

She did tell Krista Tippett in a long interview for The On Being Podcast that “I got saved by poetry, and I got saved by the beauty of the world.”

See this remembrance of Mary Oliver (1935-2019) and her astonishing poetry, with links to articles, interviews, and readings, as well as more of her favorite poems I’ve loved and posted over the years.

— Written and compiled (citing sources) by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.

Related: In Billy Collins, The Art of Poetry No. 83, The Paris Review Issue 159, Fall 2001, editor George Plimpton asked him what makes a poet. Collins summarized his four attributes of a poet: attentiveness, a love of language, a sense of gratitude for being alive, and laziness. For more on that interview, see the second part of this post where Plimpton asks Collins how he starts to write a poem: Billy Collins discusses the value of getting to the end of a poem and what can happen afterwards.

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Mary Oliver’s poem, Swan, awakens us to the transformational power of nature’s beauty

January 13, 2024

Mary Oliver’s poem, Swan, asks us if we see, hear, and feel what she does, drawing rich references to the beautiful aspects of a swan, culminating in two powerful questions.

Swan
by Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air —
an armful of white blossoms,
a perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
a shrill dark music — like the rain pelting the trees — like a waterfall
knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds —
a white cross streaming across the sky, its feet
like black leaves, its wings like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

From Swan: Poems and Prose Poems. Copyright 2010 by Mary Oliver. Published by Beacon Press.

She did tell Krista Tippett in a long interview for The On Being Podcast that “I got saved by poetry, and I got saved by the beauty of the world.”

The questions that Mary Oliver asks her readers at the end of the Swan poem remind me of the one she asks at the end of The Summer Day (aka “The Grasshopper”).

See this remembrance of Mary Oliver (1935-2019) and her astonishing poetry, with links to articles, interviews, and readings, as well as several of her favorite poems I’ve loved and posted over the years.

— Written and compiled (citing sources) by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.

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Enjoy cricket poems by Mary Oliver and Rita Dove from two points of view—the poet and the cricket

August 26, 2023

Do you remember hearing a cricket chirping at night? Did you enjoy listening to its song, or was it annoying? Two well-known poets wrote about their encounters with a cricket, but from different points of view—the poet and the cricket.

I first found this poem, Nothing Is Too Small Not to Be Wondered About, by Mary Oliver. Attentive to all creatures, including the smallest of them, she wonders what happened to the cricket after it stopped its singing.

I then came across another poem about a cricket, Postlude, by Rita Dove. But it’s written from the perspective of one with something to say, and the magic that can happen when we stop and listen.

1st cricket poem

Nothing Is Too Small Not to Be Wondered About 
Mary Oliver
The cricket doesn’t wonder 
    if there’s a heaven
or, if there is, if there’s room for him.

It’s fall. Romance is over. Still, he sings.
If he can, he enters a house
    through the tiniest crack under the door.
Then the house grows colder.

He sings slower and slower.
    Then, nothing.

This must mean something, I don’t know what.
    But certainly it doesn’t mean 
he hasn’t been an excellent cricket 
    all his life.

Mary Oliver, “Nothing Is Too Small Not to Be Wondered About.” Felicity: Poems. New York: Penguin Press, 2016.

I found that one on Best Poems, and then as it appears with line breaks on page 27 of Felicity posted at the University of Arizona Poetry Center under Poems of Love and Compassion.

2nd cricket poem

Postlude
Rita Dove

     Stay by the hearth, little cricket.
     —Cendrillon

You prefer me invisible, no more than
a crisp salute far away from
your silks and firewood and woolens.

Out of sight, I'm merely an annoyance,
one slim, obstinate wrinkle in night's
deepening trance. When sleep fails,

you wish me shushed and back in my hole.
As usual, you're not listening: time stops
only if you stop long enough to hear it

passing. This is my business:
I've got ten weeks left to croon through.
What you hear is a lifetime of song.
“Postlude” by Rita Dove, featured in The Paris Review Issue No. 235, Winter 2020.  Copyright © 2020 by The Paris Review, used by permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.

Read Rita Dove’s impressive biography after the poem in Featured Poet published on Poetry Daily, a partnership between the Daily Poetry Association and George Mason University.

Read about Mary Oliver (1935-2019) and her astonishing poetry in this memorial acknowledgment to her poetic legacy. It contains links to articles, interviews, and poetry readings, as well as many of her favorite poems I’ve loved and posted over the years.

— Written and compiled by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.

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Coming Home by Mary Oliver

July 15, 2022

This evocative poem by Mary Oliver took me on a journey. Its conclusion nostalgically, surprisingly, stirred me.

Coming Home

When we are driving in the dark,
on the long road
to Provincetown, which lies empty
for miles, when we’re weary,
when the buildings
and the scrub pines lose
their familiar look,
I imagine us rising
from the speeding car.
I imagine us seeing
everything from another place — the top
of one of the pale dunes,
or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea —
and what we see is a world
that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything — the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness —
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.

Published in Dreamwork (1986) and Devotions (2017)

Read about Mary Oliver (1935-2019) and her astonishing poetry in this memorial acknowledgment to her poetic legacy. It contains links to articles, interviews, and poetry readings, as well as many of her favorite poems I’ve loved and posted over the years.

This simple poem—Once in the 40’s by William Stafford—might quietly surprise you at the end with its own form of nostalgia.

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Mary Oliver reads a lovely poem about her dog

September 14, 2021

Renowned poet Mary Oliver recites “Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night” from her collection of new and favorite poems, Dog Songs, celebrating the dogs that have enriched her world.

Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night

He puts his cheek against mine
and makes small, expressive sounds.
And when I’m awake, or awake enough

he turns upside down, his four paws
in the air
and his eyes dark and fervent.

“Tell me you love me,” he says.

“Tell me again.”

Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over
he gets to ask.
I get to tell.

Here are two other dog poems by Mary Oliver posted on Words for the Year: The Sweetness of Dogs and I Ask Percy How I Should Live My Life.

Read about Mary Oliver (1935-2019) and her astonishing poetry in this memorial acknowledgment to her poetic legacy. It contains links to articles, interviews, and poetry readings, as well as many of her favorite poems I’ve loved and posted over the years.

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Being in Nature—a gift from a tree

December 6, 2020

We often hear about the the benefits of being in nature. I remembered an experience I had with a tree when I went for a winter walk with a friend on the University Endowment Lands in Vancouver during the mid-1990s. I’ve now updated that blog post with what had happened and how a poem came to be written around 25 years ago. The post contains links to other poems written about trees, and advice from Mary Oliver.

The Uncarved Blog

We often hear about the the benefits of being in nature. I remembered an experience I had with a tree when I went for a winter walk with a friend on the University Endowment Lands in Vancouver during the mid-1990s.

I stopped in front of a particular tree to admire its intricate bark structure up close. I felt a ray of loving attention come from the tree into my heart-mind with these words: “the realness of natural things, the nearness of you.” It was an unexpected intimate experience and I quickly wrote the words down for further exploration. The next morning, I rewrote them as a two-line stanza, and then sequential stanzas naturally unfolded sharing its wisdom. It was as if I had been given a creative seed and it sprouted into a poem.

This gift from the tree was much appreciated. The experience reiterated what Mary Oliver described in…

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Mary Oliver is the Messenger for Thanksgiving

November 26, 2020

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our American friends, and to everyone of us who are thankful for life and staying healthy.

The Uncarved Blog

Mary Oliver’s poem, Messenger, was written in her own unique voice, but it must have been influenced by her favorite American poet, Walt Whitman. It’s a perfect poem to share for Thanksgiving, since her poetry is a thanksgiving for being alive in the world, appreciating every living thing in it, and singing their praises. “My work is loving the world…mostly standing still and learning to be astonished…which is mostly rejoicing…which is gratitude…a mouth with which to give shouts of joy.”

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
 
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
 
which is mostly standing still and learning…

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Mary Oliver is the Messenger for Thanksgiving

November 28, 2019

Mary Oliver’s poem, Messenger, was written in her own unique voice, but it must have been influenced by her favorite American poet, Walt Whitman. It’s a perfect poem to share for Thanksgiving, since her poetry is a thanksgiving for being alive in the world, appreciating every living thing in it, and singing their praises. “My work is loving the world…mostly standing still and learning to be astonished…which is mostly rejoicing…which is gratitude…a mouth with which to give shouts of joy.”

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
 
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
 
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
 
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

You can read more about Mary Oliver and her astonishing poetry in this memorial acknowledgment of her poetic legacy to us.

Here is an added footnote: “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

I remember Maharishi telling us that whatever we put our attention on will grow stronger in our life. The cornerstone to Mary Oliver’s appreciation of and love for the natural world around her was the power of her attention. She was awake to everything and was always astonished. Her sustained empathic attention to the land and its inhabitants inspired devotional poetry. In this interview, On Being’s Krista Tippett asks Mary Oliver about the role of attention in her work.

Ms. Tippett: I’d like to talk about attention, which is another real theme that runs through your work, both the word and the practice. I know people associate you with that word. But I was interested to read that you began to learn that attention without feeling is only a report. That there is more to attention than for it to matter in the way you want it to matter. Say something about that learning.

Ms. Oliver: You need empathy with it rather than just reporting. Reporting is for field guides. And they’re great. They’re helpful. But that’s what they are. They’re not thought provokers. They don’t go anywhere. And I say somewhere that attention is the beginning of devotion, which I do believe. But that’s it. A lot of these things are said but can’t be explained.

You can listen to and read a transcript of the whole interview.

Mary Oliver’s essential message for living a full life

Mary Oliver said: “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” She elaborated it in this 3-line poem, Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it. And did she ever! It’s how she lived her life, and told us all about it in the gift of her amazing poetry.

Other relevant posts: Mary Oliver’s poem, Praying, is a lesson on attention, receptivity, listening and writing and her poem, Mindful, Attentive to and delighting in her surroundings, Mary Oliver lived a life writing astonishing poetry.

— Written and compiled (citing sources) by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.

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In her poem, Mockingbirds, Mary Oliver teaches us how to listen, and be transformed by wonder

October 22, 2019

Our attention is the greatest gift we can give to someone, or something. It can transform our world. Mary Oliver’s poem, Mockingbirds, teaches us how to listen, and experience the wonders around us.

Mockingbirds

by Mary Oliver

This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing

the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing

better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.

In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door

to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,

but gods.
It is my favorite story–
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give

but their willingness
to be attentive–
but for this alone
the gods loved them

and blessed them–
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water

from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,

and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down–
but still they asked for nothing

but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.

Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning–
whatever it was I said

I would be doing–
I was standing
at the edge of the field–
I was hurrying

through my own soul,
opening its dark doors–
I was leaning out;
I was listening.

###

Mary Oliver left us at the beginning of this year. To learn more about this amazed poet and her amazing poetry, see: RIP: Mary Oliver. Thank you for sharing your poetic gifts with us. They are a national treasure!

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Mary Oliver advises us to open up to joy and not hesitate if we suddenly and unexpectedly feel it

March 13, 2019

                    DON’T HESITATE

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

— Mary Oliver, Evidence (2009), Devotions (2017)

See this remembrance of Mary Oliver with links to more of her poems.

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