Mary Oliver*

Mary Oliver (1935—2019) is a poet who encourages us all to reflect upon, and learn from, the things we observe. Her poems are simple, yet profound, drawing us into the natural world through small, specific details — such as in “When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention” she has them say, “Then we will drop / foil by foil to the ground. This / is our unalterable task, and we do it / joyfully.” There is a calm, submissiveness here, that speaks of her faith in the rightness of the world God has made.

Despite the immense popularity of her poetry, little has been written in the way of critical studies — probably because there’s little that can be said to analyse it, other than to let the poems say what they want to say.

In 2017, Penguin published Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, of which the Chicago Tribune said, “It’s as if the poet herself has sidled beside the reader and pointed us to the poems she considers most worthy of deep consideration.” This would be a worthwhile place to encounter her work, although I am still partial to the very first collection of hers I purchased: Thirst (Beacon Press, 2006).

She remains difficult to pin down, despite being transparent and honest in her self-disclosure. She prays, in her 2008 collection Red Bird —
----Maker of All Things…
----let me abide in your shadow—
----let me hold on
----to the edge of your robe
----as you determine
----what you must let be lost
----and what will be saved.

After having lived for over forty years in Provincetown, Massachusetts, she moved to the southeast coast of Florida; she died there in 2019. The following poem is from Thirst.

Gethsemane

The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.

Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.

The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.

Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move, maybe
the lake far away, where once he walked as on a blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.

Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.

*This is the fourth Kingdom Poets post about Mary Oliver: first post, second post, third post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.

Amy Nemecek

Amy Nemecek is a poet living in Michigan who in 2021 won the Paraclete Poetry Prize for her book The Language of the Birds (2022). By day, she works as a nonfiction editor for the Baker Publishing Group.

Luci Shaw has said about this collection, “In this brilliant transcription of responsive poems we are reminded of the generous beauty offered us by our Creator, if we would only look and listen, if we would join in offering praise.”

“Listen more than you talk. Stop and listen, stop and watch,” Nemecek said in an interview with Grand Rapids Magazine. She then echoed Mary Oliver’s poem “When I Am Among the Trees” to say “… never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.” This is advice she not only shares, but applies to the writing of her own poems.

The following is the title poem from her book.

The Language of the Birds

On the fifth day, your calloused fingers
stretched out and plucked a single reed
from the river that flowed out of Eden,
trimmed its hollow shaft to length and
whittled one end to a precise vee
that you dipped in the inkwell of ocean.
Touching pulpy nib to papyrus sky,
you brushed a single hieroglyph―
feathered the vertical downstroke
flourished with serif of pinions,
a perpendicular crossbar lifting
weightless bones from left to right.
Tucking the stylus behind your ear,
you blew across the wet silhouette,
dried a raven’s wings against the static,
and spoke aloud the symbol’s sounds:
“Fly!”

Posted with permission of the poet.

This post was suggested by Nellie deVries.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Mary Oliver*

Mary Oliver (1935—2019) is one of the best-selling contemporary poets in the United States. Her poems are far more often about the natural world — about birds and trees and marshes — than about people; even so she has written many poems about Jesus, and about Christian faith. Her style is accessible, and earnest. She once said in an interview, "One thing I do know is that poetry, to be understood, must be clear. It mustn't be fancy." She died of lymphoma on Thursday (January 17th).

Jewish Rabbi Jeffery Salkin wrote on the day of her passing, “Mary Oliver rejects logical explanation. She leaves room for uncertainty; in fact, she embraces it.” He quotes from one of her recent poems:
-----“I have refused to live
-----locked in the orderly house of
-----reasons and proofs.
-----The world I live in and believe in
-----is wider than that. And anyway,
-----what’s wrong with Maybe? ...”

The following poem was written much earlier.

Maybe

Sweet Jesus, talking
-----his melancholy madness,
----------stood up in the boat
---------------and the sea lay down,
silky and sorry.
-----So everybody was saved
----------that night.
---------------But you know how it is
when something
-----different crosses
----------the threshold — the uncles
---------------mutter together,
the women walk away,
-----the young brother begins
----------to sharpen his knife.
---------------Nobody knows what the soul is.
It comes and goes
-----like the wind over the water —
----------sometimes, for days,
---------------you don't think of it.
Maybe, after the sermon,
-----after the multitude was fed,
----------one or two of them felt
---------------the soul slip forth
like a tremor of pure sunlight
-----before exhaustion,
----------that wants to swallow everything,
---------------gripped their bones and left them
miserable and sleepy,
-----as they are now, forgetting
----------how the wind tore at the sails
---------------before he rose and talked to it —
tender and luminous and demanding
-----as he always was —
----------a thousand times more frightening
---------------than the killer storm.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Mary Oliver: first post, second post, fourth post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Mary Oliver*

Mary Oliver is, according to the New York Times, by far the best-selling US poet. Her first book, No Voyage and Other Poems, appeared in 1963, and she has since published more than twenty collections. Through the years her voice has developed as one who is very attentive and appreciative of the natural world, and thankful to God for every little beautiful detail.

Mary Oliver's American Primitive (1983) won the Pulitzer Prize, and her New and Selected Poems (1992) won the National Book Award. Her most recent poetry collection is Felicity.

The following poem is from her 2006 collection, Thirst. I thought it would be a fine place to begin our Easter anticipations, as we move toward Palm Sunday.

The Poet Thinks about the Donkey

On the outskirts of Jerusalem
The donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
He stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow,
Leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
Clatter away, splashed with sunlight!

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
As he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Mary Oliver: first post, third post, fourth post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is one of the most popular of all contemporary American poets. She is known and loved for her accessible style, her positive outlook, and her portrayals of nature. When she was 17, she made a pilgrimage to visit the home of the deceased poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay. She became friends with the poet's sister, Norma, and virtually lived on the 800 acre property with her for the next six years. She published her first collection of poetry when she was 28, but didn't receive much attention until her fifth collection, American Primitive (1983), won the Pulitzer Prize.

She disliked public attention — rarely granting interviews or making appearances. Even so, her poetry continued to gain notice, such as when her 1992 collection won the National Book Award. Her troubled childhood probably contributed to this desire for isolation. In a recent rare interview she expressed that she was sexually abused as a child, and feels damaged as a result. She also said in the same interview, “I try to praise. If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the earth is meant to look like.”

Although she is reluctant to identify herself too closely with organized religion, the faith she has expressed in such recent books as Thirst (2006), Red Bird (2008) and Evidence (2009), reveals a spirituality grounded not only in the natural world, but also in Christ. The Booklist review of Thirst says, “Spirituality has always been an element in Oliver's work, but as she writes of her grief after losing her longtime companion [Molly Malone Cook], her poems gradually become overtly Christian.” This is evident in such poems as “Coming to God: First Days”, “The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist” and “Six Recognitions of the Lord”. All from that book.

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Spring

Faith
is the instructor.
We need no other.

Guess what I am,
he says in his
incomparably lovely

young-man voice.
Because I love the world
I think of grass,

I think of leaves
and the bold sun,
I think of the rushes

in the black marshes
just coming back
from under the pure white

and now finally melting
stubs of snow.
Whatever we know or don’t know

leads us to say;
Teacher, what do you mean?
But faith is still there, and silent.

Then he who owns
the incomparable voice
suddenly flows upward

and out of the room
and I follow,
obedient and happy.

Of course I am thinking
the Lord was once young
and will never in fact be old.

And who else could this be, who goes off
down the green path,
carrying his sandals, and singing?

Read my Ruminate review of Mary Oliver's poetry collection
Red Bird here, and my review for The Cresset of her boook Evidence, here.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Mary Oliver: second post, third post, fourth post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca