Attaining that "other part of knowing something" has been Oliver's life work: her poems and essays are her own full-throated response to the question she poses at the very end of one of her best known poems, "The Summer Day": Knowledge has entertained me and it has shaped me and it has failed me. Something in me still starves.” ― Mary Oliver, Upstream There are keen insights into the natural world, animals and literary masters that inspired her poetry. Understand from the first this certainty. Butterflies don’t write books, neither do lilies or violets. Which doesn’t mean they don’t know, in their own way, what they are. That they don’t know they are alive—that they don’t feel, that action upon which all consciousness sits, lightly or heavily. Humility is the prize of the leaf-world. Vainglory is the bane of us, the humans.

Mary Jane Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild. I've discovered a kindred spirit in Mary, and felt like she was speaking to me alone while I read. To read about a renowned poet who shares similar thoughts and dreams as my own was a comfort I never knew I was looking for. This book and Mary herself has given me hope, in my dreams, and in the possibilities of the world. The Third Self: Mary Oliver on Time, Concentration, the Artist’s Task, and the Central Commitment of the Creative Life – The MarginalianOliver's essays on Whitman, Emerson, and Poe are insightful pieces that were immensely enjoyable to read. They offer perspective and interpretation on both each author's work and the motivation behind it. I would eagerly recommend Oliver's essays as strong companion pieces to experiencing and/or revisiting each author in turn. Oliver illumines wonderful points about these specific authors as well as literature as a whole. As with the assertion, from her "Emerson: An Introduction," that In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be. Wordsworth studied himself and found the subject astonishing. Actually what he studied was his relationship to the harmonies and also the discords of the natural world. That’s what created the excitement. Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads. ” — Mary Oliver, Mysteries, Yes Mary Oliver can do no wrong in her poetry. She is one of my favorite voices, reflecting on nature, reflecting on relationships. She is happy to live a life that isn't well-traveled, but rather one that notices, that breathes. many places and in so many ways. But also the universe is brisk and businesslike, and no doubt does not give its delicate landscapes or its thunderous displays of power, and perhaps perception, too, for our sakes or our improvement.

Once I put my face against the body of our cat as she lay with her kittens, and she did not seem to mind. So I pursed my lips against that full moon, and I tasted the rich river of her body. But just as self-criticism is the most merciless kind of criticism and self-compassion the most elusive kind of compassion, self-distraction is the most hazardous kind of distraction, and the most difficult to protect creative work against.Of this there can be no question — creative work requires a loyalty as complete as the loyalty of water to the force of gravity. A person trudging through the wilderness of creation who does not know this — who does not swallow this — is lost. He who does not crave that roofless place eternity should stay at home. Such a person is perfectly worthy, and useful, and even beautiful, but is not an artist. Such a person had better live with timely ambitions and finished work formed for the sparkle of the moment only. Such a person had better go off and fly an airplane. For TLC straight to your inbox + life-affirming words I don't share anywhere else, just say the word. I, too ,at age 83 had never heard of Mary, or really into poetry. A then dear friend introduced her to me at a low and vulnerable time via ‘Wild Geese’ which both resonated with me and moved me very much, especially the line about ‘despair’. I now see many references to her, and so sorry that I had not known of her before. I bought her most recent volume. ’ Devotions’, and have opened. myself belatedly in life, to poetry in general. Grateful to my friend, although distressed that I have been dropped as a friend. Hopefully Oliver will sustain me, in my sadness. She observes a spider raising her young, gives sanctuary to an injured gull, then ponders the terrible mystery of the endlessly hungry owl. How I Go to the Woods” especially this last sentence…“If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.”

Uniting essays from Oliver’s previous books and elsewhere, this gem of a collection offers a compelling synthesis of the poet’s thoughts on the natural, spiritual and artistic worlds . . .” — The New York Times My other favorite is: I don’t want to be demure or respectable. I was that way, asleep, for years. That way, you forget too many important things. urn:lcp:upstreamselected0000oliv:epub:4587480b-b8f6-4c79-b90d-5c5b387c6056 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier upstreamselected0000oliv Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t0qs7dp2s Invoice 1652 Isbn 1594206708 The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time. Our mission is to foster a universal passion for reading by partnering with authors to help create stories and communicate ideas that inform, entertain, and inspire.The aspect of Oliver's Upstream that most connected me with her writing and most moved me to start reading her poetry is her ability to vividly capture the impress and beauty of the wild. Her prose is warm honey dripping from fresh honey comb and freshly spilled blood on snow. It holds a visceral heat and weight to it that is stirring and captivating. It made me think of Waldeinsamkeit, the 'untranslatable' German word for "the feeling of being alone in the woods" with wald meaning wood/forest and einsamkeit meaning loneliness or solitude. More yearn for than think of really. Thanks to an old yet never sated etymology addiction and a penchant for eagerly grabbing the bait whenever an article like "50 Untranslatable Words From Other Languages" pops up in my radar, waldeinsamkeit is what comes to mind when I think of having an intense connection with nature. Where one can be swallowed up by the underside of a trees' leaves or the glow surrounding the moon on a windy night; a perfect contentment in solitude while everything breathes around you. I can't say 'breathes' is really the word, that it really expresses a clear expression. That otherness felt in nature, as in literature and the poignance of both, is beyond my abilities of description but Oliver does it credit in her essay titled "Staying Alive". She so beautifully describes the watery world of fish swimming in blue pastures, sunflowers that are more wonderful than any words about them, and wild roses as an immutable force whose purpose is to strike our heart and saturate it with simple joy. In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.” — Mary Oliver, Upstream Most mornings I’m up to see the sun, and that rising of the light moves me very much, and I’m used to thinking and feeling in words, so it sort of just happens. I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and … almost involuntary in my life,” she says. “And when I talk about prayer, I mean really … what Rumi says in that wonderful line, ‘there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.'” — Mary Oliver Dream Work (1986) continues Oliver’s search to “understand both the wonder and pain of nature” according to Prado in a later review for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Ostriker considered Oliver “among the few American poets who can describe and transmit ecstasy, while retaining a practical awareness of the world as one of predators and prey.” For Ostriker, Dream Work is ultimately a volume in which Oliver moves “from the natural world and its desires, the ‘heaven of appetite’ ... into the world of historical and personal suffering. ... She confronts as well, steadily,” Ostriker continued, “what she cannot change.”