Dream Work
by Mary Oliver
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Read in February, 2007
I was given this book in February by a woman who must have seen right though me and known exactly what my dehydrated little soul was crying for. I was beginning to emerge from a dark, dark winter and here was Mary Oliver - choosing to find joy in each moment, choosing to celebrate triumph where it was to be found, choosing to find beauty in the world.
Many of the poems in this collection are deeply and precisely perceptive meditations on the creatures of nature - a dogfish, a shark, milkweed...more
Many of the poems in this collection are deeply and precisely perceptive meditations on the creatures of nature - a dogfish, a shark, milkweed...more
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Really enjoyed this. Good for people who are struggling with finding peace and cultivating compassion in a vast, indifferent universe. So, you know.
For personal reference, some of the ones I liked best:
"Dogfish" (Mostly, I want to be kind. / And nobody, of course, is kind, / or mean, / for a simple reason.)
"Wild Geese" (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 / l...more
For personal reference, some of the ones I liked best:
"Dogfish" (Mostly, I want to be kind. / And nobody, of course, is kind, / or mean, / for a simple reason.)
"Wild Geese" (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 / l...more
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Read in January, 2008
Like me, Mary Oliver is a seasoned and devoted walker. Perhaps that's why, having read her poems, I always feel like I just got back from a long stroll with a clever, contemplative friend.
Most of her images are gentle, reverent, or whimsical, like this one: a cluster of milkweed, "standing / like a country of dry women / . . . each one crackles like a blessing / over its thin children as they rush away" (from "Milkweed").
In Oliver's poems as in life, though, horrifi...more
Most of her images are gentle, reverent, or whimsical, like this one: a cluster of milkweed, "standing / like a country of dry women / . . . each one crackles like a blessing / over its thin children as they rush away" (from "Milkweed").
In Oliver's poems as in life, though, horrifi...more
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Read in January, 2007
My mother gave this to me because of Wild Geese the same Christmas I gave her New and Selected Poems: Volume One for the same poem, as did a close friend of hers, and I just found out that my boyfriend's mother has it memorized; that's how powerful the poem is. Mary Oliver isn't one of my favorite poets but I'll always be grateful for Wild Geese.
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If I was stranded on a desert island, I would want this book with me. Dreamwork may not be a peice of brilliant literature, but it speaks to me like no other book - it has provided comfort, inspiration, and motivation to me for the last decade... If I had a guru, it would be Mary Oliver. Although she's too modest for followers, probably.
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Read in January, 2007
This volume of poetry made me fall in love with Mary Oliver. Her attention to nature, her minimalism make my heart and mind still. I would especially suggest reading "Wild Geese" (heavily anthologized, and for good reason), "Banyan," "Morning Poem," "The Journey," and "Two Kinds of Deliverance."
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The poems in this book deal more with living and loving than with nature...humanity in general. They are simply lovely. I really like "Consequences" and "Poem" and the imagery in "The Sunflowers." These poems seem to be on a greater spiritual level than some of her others.
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Read in January, 1997
This was the 1st collection I read by Mary Oliver and contains some of my favorite poems. Her connection to the natural world is one that I am grateful to be apart of thru her poetry.
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The poems WILD GEESE, and THE JOURNEY are two of my favorite poems ever written. The rest of this collection is good as well.
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