Why I Wake Early Author: Mary Oliver | Language: English | ISBN:
B001KOTYXO | Format: EPUB
Why I Wake Early Description
Mary Oliver has been writing poetry for nearly five decades, and in that time she has become America's foremost poetic voice on our experience of the physical world. This collection presents forty-seven new poems, all written within the last two years, and each exhibiting the power and grace that have become the hallmarks of Oliver's work.
The volume includes poems on crickets, toads, trout lilies, black snakes, goldenrod, bears, greeting the morning, watching the deer and, finally, lingering in happiness. Each poem is imbued with the extraordinary perceptions of a poet who considers the everyday in our lives and the natural world around us and finds a multitude of reasons to marvel.
On the eve of the publication of her third volume of poems, Twelve Moons, Archibald MacLeish wrote to Mary Oliver: "You have indeed entered the kingdom. You have done something better than create your own world: you have discovered the world we all live in and do not see and cannot feel."
In the twenty-five years since, Mary Oliver has published nine more volumes of poetry, each revealing new aspects of our world, inviting us to pause with her and to see and feel them. In this new volume she demonstrates, perhaps more affectionately than ever before, "what it means to be human and what is worthwhile about life,"* or, more simply, why the poet wakes early. (*
Library Journal)
- File Size: 398 KB
- Print Length: 88 pages
- Publisher: Beacon Press (April 15, 2004)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B001KOTYXO
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #91,943 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #42
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Environment > Conservation - #51
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > American
- #42
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Environment > Conservation - #51
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > American
Mary Oliver has written a beautiful collection of 47 poems that shows her love of nature, and really why she does wake early to greet the day. One of the qualities of her writing that I most enjoyed is that she expresses her intricate love of nature with a joy that lacks sentimentality. She spends her time determining what she is seeing and hearing and writes about that rather than looking inward to how she feels about everything. Therefore, her joy and feeling come through in the words she chooses to describe her subjects, and not in a list of subjective feelings. For me, that made her poetry universal and a communication that I could share in. I highly recommend this book for both the poetry and nature lover.
By Brenda Jo Mengeling
This is a lovely, uplifting book of poems. It celebrates the gifts life provides if we would only wake and observe the natural world. These poems bring solace to the soul. They seem to come from a place where one's life is winding down, slowing to a comfortable and relaxed peace - as if Mary Oliver is held in the arms of the natural world near the end of life and describing how wonderful it all is.
This book tells us it is enough to be at peace with the world and to enjoy what we've been given. Now in her seventies, she may have moved beyond the inner struggles of past and worries of future. The poems in Why I Wake Early, seem to say that for her it is now enough to observe, describe, and enjoy what nature offers. She does not need to wrestle with meaning - just be and enjoy.
Perhaps I am too cynical, certainly less evolved or mature. However, I was hoping for more poems that touched upon the conflicts and cruelty we observe and survive. I wanted to experience more poems with challenge and pain - like those in American Primitive. I was hoping for poems that moved through beauty and darkness, then resolved in a wiser, deeper peace.
So, I was disappointed because the poems in Why I Wake Early lacked angst and profound observations. Don't get me wrong - these poems are eloquent, beautifully descriptive and gentle - full of appreciation and respect for the natural world. They are each a gift of thanks.
I just happen to prefer the depth and range of her earlier poems. I recommend new readers get and read her Selected Poems first, then read this book. All of her books are treasures, including this one - so whatever you do, read Mary Oliver's work. I've given books by her to many friends, and each of them comments on what amazing poems they are. She is a remarkable, gifted poet - one of the best in America.
By Zelda
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