mary oliver

[sylphbranching.livejournal.com]

Mary Oliver's poetry is so simple and celebratory. At times, her work reads heavy-handed to me, but also very redeeming, accepting, forgiving. It forces me, at times, to give up being overly critical and analytical, and simply enjoy the world, despite its flaws.


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.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Comments

[angelvasectomy.livejournal.com]

Her stuff reminds me of Rumi.

[terabithiabeth.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I stumbled across Mary Oliver last year, and have been in love ever since.

[3g0.livejournal.com]

That's one of my favorites. Czeslaw Milosz published that poem in A Book of Luminous Things. There are some great ones in there.

[lunar-endeavor.livejournal.com]

Mary Oliver can be a bit didactic at times--but, on the whole, I do love her poetry. It's certainly the sort of thing I pull down on a rough day for a little soothing. I'd have to say my favorite Oliver poem is "Dogfish". It's gracefully written, and while perhaps it isn't as warmly optimistic as "Wild Geese", it feels very honest.

[sylphbranching.livejournal.com]

thanks for directing me to "Dogfish" - i read it at: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=3156

It certainly has a different feel than many of her other poems that I've read. I like how simple personal narrative intertwines with her description of the fish, and how her acceptance of despair and futility in the end are contrasted by what you know every being is still going to do - survive and search out the easier ways despite life's futility and difficulty. it is at once nihilistic and optimistic...

[zoheret.livejournal.com]

I adore Mary Oliver. Wonderful poem.

My favorite of hers is In Blackwater Woods.