Thursday, September 03, 2020

Mary Oliver


There was something, well, something poetic about my first encounter with Mary Oliver. Today, as the fog cleared, and as the afternoon sun appeared, I found myself with a pile of books from the public library. One of those was Oliver's Blue Horses, a collection of her later poems.  

There was something poetic because Oliver -- in a quiet, tempered way -- celebrates the beauty around us, and reminders us to savor those small moments of wonder. Blue Horses is a collection with a purpose: to embrace what's given, to seek clarity in nature's splendor.

All of which is not to say that I'd consider Blue Horses a success. In my reading, Oliver's poems are almost too informal. There's not enough holding them together, not enough grounding them. And perhaps that levity is another of Oliver's objectives: to keep things light, even when they are solemn. But for me, these poems often felt unfinished, as if Oliver had penned them without revisiting them. In that sense, they're vignettes, reflections on the rote and routine. 

Despite the critique, I was happy to experience Oliver's writing as I did: at random, on a beautiful day, during an extended moment of silence. There was something about that, I think, which she not only would have appreciated, but indeed, would have celebrated.

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