mary oliver new and selected poems table of contents

Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness.

Consider this paragraph that closes up the section on blubber: The whale, and all of its different parts, is an opportunity for Melville to philosophize, to contemplate, and also, at times, to pronounce. I have not been sure what it is.” If I had to compare what she does in these poems to any other writer, I would say Herman Melville, in the “whale sections” of Moby Dick, with their marine-biology-lecture quality, always ending in some high-flown philosophical thought: the whale as metaphor for life, death, mortality. Then she launches off into this: “All my life / I have been restless – / I have felt there is something / more wonderful than gloss – / than wholeness – / than staying at home. Her poem about “Whelks” start with an observation about what she sees – “whirlwinds, / each the size of a fist / but always cracked and broken”. It takes courage to set down one’s philosophy so firmly, with such certainty. I have ZERO idea who she is, personally, but her outlook is redemptive, and her poems are things I have gone to when things have gotten bad. It is hard to describe what it is Mary Oliver does, exactly, with her subjects, but she observes them, and she contemplates them, and she occasionally flies off into transcendent musings about them, and her work is nothing less than miraculous to me. These are nature poems, for the most part – with titles like “Whelks”, “Alligator Poem”, “Poppies”, “Water Snake”, “The Sunflower”. At least not about her domestic life, her love life, her work. I don’t know much about Mary Oliver’s personal life, and her poems don’t tell any secrets. Stephen Dobyns, New York Times Book Review Next book on the shelf:Īlthough few poets have fewer human beings in their poems than Mary Oliver, it is ironic that few poets also go so far to help us forward.

Mary oliver new and selected poems table of contents