In a Dark Time … The Eye Begins to See

When I first looked at Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems, I was a little disappointed that the new poems were at the front of the book and the older poems at the end. While that’s convenient if you’re picking up a book by a familiar poet, it’s less convenient if you’ve just discovered a [...]

I like a surprising number of Mary Oliver’s poems in these sections, but, as usual, the ones I particularly like are the ones that I identify with the most. In fact, “The Fish” made me remember some particularly vivid childhood memories that I’d manage to forget: THE FISH The first fish I ever caught would not lie down quiet in [...]

Reading Mary Oliver’s later poems is somewhat of a rollercoaster ride between total despair and sheer elation, always driven by an awareness of death. At it’s best, this awareness produces some excellent poems. One of my favorites, though I’m not quite sure why, is: A BITTERNESS I believe you did not have a happy life. I believe you [...]

While browsing the poetry section at my local bookstore recently I found Mary Oliver’s Owl and Other Fantasies. Not surprisingly, considering my recent obsession with birds, I bought it. After all, I doubt it would suddenly appear at the appropriate moment like that if I wasn’t intended to have it, now would it? Although I wasn’t [...]