From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, her most personal book yet “What good company Mary Oliver is ” the Los Angeles Times has remarked. And never more so than in this extraordinary and engaging gathering of nine essays, accompanied by a brief selection of new prose poems and poems. (One of the essays has been chosen as among the best of the year by THE BEST AMERICAN … AMERICAN ESSAYS 1998, another by The Anchor Essay Annual.) With the grace and precision that have won her legions of admirers, Oliver talks here of turtle eggs and housebuilding, of her surprise at an unexpected whistling she hears, of the “thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else.” She talks of her own poems and of some of her favorite poets: Poe, writing of “our inescapable destiny,” Frost and his ability to convey at once that “everything is all right, and everything is not all right,” the “unmistakably joyful” Hopkins, and Whitman, seeking through his poetry “the replication of a miracle.” And Oliver offers us a glimpse as well of her “private and natural self — something that must in the future be taken into consideration by any who would claim to know me.”
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I’m very fond of her pure poetry books. I enjoyed this book, but felt a little short changed in the poetry department. I would have liked more verse to illustrate her prose.
Memoir, nature and poetry combine by one of the world’s great observers.
This is a thought provoking book
Mary Oliver lives forever in my heart & soul.
Tho I loved this book, Dog Songs will always be my favorite.
Not one of Oliver’s best. I liked it, as I like all her writing, but didn’t love it.
This is a reflective book, but not quite what I expected as someone who has always appreciated her poetry.
Love all of Mary Oliver and the essays were a nice change from poetry.
Wonderful poetry.
Mary Oliver is an excellent essayist. I normally don’t read essays, but I picked this up because Mary is a poet. The language of these essays is very poetic.
In the opening essay, Building the House, she writes about a house she built and a carpenter who writes poetry in his spare time. She is an artist of detail. She describes the blue …
I have read Mary Oliver,s poetry for many years and am happy to discover this book of her essays.
I was looking forward to Mary Oliver’s prose and then I truly didn’t like it . It might have something to do with taking turtle eggs from the nest to eat or too much information on dead poets. There is much in this small book likely better suited for someone else.
Beautiful, thoughtful book on life, poetry, and seeing the world as an artist.
Mary Oliver is such a creative writer whether it is poetry or stories. She reflects life so well it is scary for insight. This book is well done and everyone should read it in honor of her life.
Beautiful poetry.