David Sam’s Reviews > New and Selected Poems: Mary Oliver
New and Selected Poems: Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“Sometimes the great bones of my life feel so heavy, and all the tricks my body knows— the opposable thumbs, the kneecaps, and the mind clicking and clicking— don’t seem enough to carry me through this world and I think: how I would like to have wings”
So writes Mary Oliver in one of the first poems of this collection—and throughout she exposes her confrontation with mortality and her and our earthbound nature.
Selected in reverse chronological order, the poems show the growth of the poet over three decades. He language is vivid and her poetic seeing often surprisingly exact:
“the black snake jellies forward”
“and the birds, in the endless waterfalls of the trees”
She loves life, loves nature, with the passion of one who knows mortality in the flight of an owl’s hunger. Spend some time with this poet and the wonderful words she leaves behind for us to follow, like a trail through the forest.