What do you think?
Rate this book
Long Life: Essays and Other Writings
‘The gift of Oliver's poetry is that she communicates the beauty she finds in the world and makes it unforgettable.’ (Miami Herald) This has never been truer than in Long Life, a luminous collection of seventeen essays and ten poems.
With the grace and precision that are the hallmarks of her work, Oliver shows us how writing ‘is a way of offering praise to the world’ and suggests we see her poems as ‘little alleluias’. Whether describing a goosefish stranded at low tide, the feeling of being baptized by the mist from a whale's blowhole, or the ‘connection between soul and landscape’, Oliver invites readers to find themselves and their experiences at the center of her world. In Long Life she also speaks of poets and writers: Wordsworth's ‘whirlwind’ of ‘beauty and strangeness’; Hawthorne's ‘sweet-tempered’ side; and Emerson's belief that ‘a man's inclination, once awakened to it, would be to turn all the heavy sails of his life to a moral purpose’.
With consummate craftsmanship, Mary Oliver has created a breathtaking volume sure to add to her reputation as ‘one of our very best poets’ (New York Times Book Review).
With the grace and precision that are the hallmarks of her work, Oliver shows us how writing ‘is a way of offering praise to the world’ and suggests we see her poems as ‘little alleluias’. Whether describing a goosefish stranded at low tide, the feeling of being baptized by the mist from a whale's blowhole, or the ‘connection between soul and landscape’, Oliver invites readers to find themselves and their experiences at the center of her world. In Long Life she also speaks of poets and writers: Wordsworth's ‘whirlwind’ of ‘beauty and strangeness’; Hawthorne's ‘sweet-tempered’ side; and Emerson's belief that ‘a man's inclination, once awakened to it, would be to turn all the heavy sails of his life to a moral purpose’.
With consummate craftsmanship, Mary Oliver has created a breathtaking volume sure to add to her reputation as ‘one of our very best poets’ (New York Times Book Review).
101 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
404 people are currently reading
3316 people want to read
About the author
Mary Oliver
104 books8,755 followersMary 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.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 216 reviews
June 19, 2009
I cherish Mary Oliver for many reasons. She can brighten even the most dreary, wet subway rides home. Her observations and the elegant way she articulates them manages to lift me from my daily frustrations and shakes me to remember the simple beauty right in front of me. Even when my socks are wet and it's a long subway ride home and there is someone creepy sitting next to me.
The last section of this book is so beautiful that I had to read it aloud. I forgot what a wonderful experience it is to read as closely as one does when one is reading out loud. I highly recommend doing so and I can't scream loudly enough that everyone should read this quiet, but vivid poet's prose as well as her poetry.
The last section of this book is so beautiful that I had to read it aloud. I forgot what a wonderful experience it is to read as closely as one does when one is reading out loud. I highly recommend doing so and I can't scream loudly enough that everyone should read this quiet, but vivid poet's prose as well as her poetry.
Read
April 30, 2019The title is "Long Life" and the book is short. Very thought-provoking, with many passages that I copied into my notes (no surprise).
January 18, 2019
This collection of 14 short essays, 10 poems and some other writings makes me wish that Mary Oliver (wonderful poet that she is) would write more prose. Insightful, rich in detail, and celebratory, her essays address nature, landscape, Emerson, Hawthorne, the disappearance of the town dump, life and writing in wonderful sentences.
"Poe claimed he could hear the night darkness as it poured, in the evening, into the world. I remember this now and think, reversing the hour but not the idea, that I will hear some sound of the morning as it settles upward. What I hear, though, is no such sprawling and powerful anthem, as it would have to be, but the rustling of a flock of snow buntings, high and wild in the cold air...."
"And we might, in our lives, have many thresholds, many houses to walk out from and view the stars, or to turn and go back to for warmth and company."
"Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased."
"I prefer weather in the smallest quantities. A drop will do.....We may be touched by the most powerful of suppositions--even to a certainty--as we stand in the rose petals of the sun and hear a murmur from the wind no louder than the sound it makes as it dozes under the bee's wings. This, too, I suggest, is weather, and worthy of report."
"Now he [Emerson] is only within the wider, immeasurable world of our thoughts. He lives nowhere but on the page, and in the attentive mind that leans above that page."
"The best use of literature bends not toward the narrow and the absolute but to the extravagant and the possible. Answers are no part of it; rather, it is the opinions, the rhapsodic persuasions, the engrafted logics, the clues that are to the mind of the reader the possible keys to his own self-quarrels, his own predicament."
"...it presupposes the heart's spiritual awakening as the true work of our lives."
"It's best to write, to begin with, generously."
"The ants rush toward sweetness. I take away the melon, but first I spill a little melon juice on the counter."
"When in the distance the town clock tapped out its brief news--Ah, three o'clock, I thought involuntarily, and felt one or two grains of my spirit die."
"What would it be to live one whole day as a Ruskin sentence, wandering like a creek with little comma bridges?"
"I am blood and bone however that happened, but I am convictions of my singular experience and my own thought, and they are made greatly of the hours of the earth, rough or smooth, but never less than intimate, poetic, dreamy, adamant, ferocious, loving, life-shaping. Toward morning the rain slowed. I dressed and hurried out into the world."
"In nature what looks like ornamentation is always of the greatest utility."
"Poe claimed he could hear the night darkness as it poured, in the evening, into the world. I remember this now and think, reversing the hour but not the idea, that I will hear some sound of the morning as it settles upward. What I hear, though, is no such sprawling and powerful anthem, as it would have to be, but the rustling of a flock of snow buntings, high and wild in the cold air...."
"And we might, in our lives, have many thresholds, many houses to walk out from and view the stars, or to turn and go back to for warmth and company."
"Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased."
"I prefer weather in the smallest quantities. A drop will do.....We may be touched by the most powerful of suppositions--even to a certainty--as we stand in the rose petals of the sun and hear a murmur from the wind no louder than the sound it makes as it dozes under the bee's wings. This, too, I suggest, is weather, and worthy of report."
"Now he [Emerson] is only within the wider, immeasurable world of our thoughts. He lives nowhere but on the page, and in the attentive mind that leans above that page."
"The best use of literature bends not toward the narrow and the absolute but to the extravagant and the possible. Answers are no part of it; rather, it is the opinions, the rhapsodic persuasions, the engrafted logics, the clues that are to the mind of the reader the possible keys to his own self-quarrels, his own predicament."
"...it presupposes the heart's spiritual awakening as the true work of our lives."
"It's best to write, to begin with, generously."
"The ants rush toward sweetness. I take away the melon, but first I spill a little melon juice on the counter."
"When in the distance the town clock tapped out its brief news--Ah, three o'clock, I thought involuntarily, and felt one or two grains of my spirit die."
"What would it be to live one whole day as a Ruskin sentence, wandering like a creek with little comma bridges?"
"I am blood and bone however that happened, but I am convictions of my singular experience and my own thought, and they are made greatly of the hours of the earth, rough or smooth, but never less than intimate, poetic, dreamy, adamant, ferocious, loving, life-shaping. Toward morning the rain slowed. I dressed and hurried out into the world."
"In nature what looks like ornamentation is always of the greatest utility."
June 28, 2017
reading mary oliver feels like taking a deep breath or, i don't know, drinking a big glass of icy cold water when you're really thirsty. what a lovely lovely green peaceful book of thoughtful nature writing. adjectives!
March 25, 2020
the essays on hawthorne and emerson were off-putting to me, but the rest is classically pleasing. my days have lately been clouded, so i read mary oliver, my love, my love!
October 17, 2021
I really do love poetry but OH BOY i LOVE prose
February 8, 2023
This is a short book consisting of a few poems and essays, and short profiles of Emerson and Hawthorne. Her love for nature and her knowledge of the outdoors reflects in her writings. Mary Oliver seems to be more comfortable with the birds, animals and the trees than with anything else. I’m glad I stumbled upon this book because I’m going to get my hands on more of her writings.
January 26, 2020
A selection of Oliver's essays, interspersed with poems. Because of the title, I thought this book might focus on age and ageing, but Oliver barely touched on that, though she's always interested in interrogating what it means to live well and to be part of the world. She writes in praise of nature, and wants to give back to the world she loves by expressing praise and love. She is interested in staying in one particular place (in her case, Providence) and learning the intricacies of its ecology, from the insects living in the sand, to the sand-dabs thrown on the shore, to the smallest flowers and birds, to the humpback whales. Her ability to observe is fascinating and powerful. This book doesn't deal very directly with climate change or loss of environment: mentions are made of destruction in Oliver's immediate environs, but she while she believes that people can live in harmony with nature, she doesn't address what this might mean for modern humans, which is a flaw. However, I return to Oliver's work all the time to find solace in her understanding of nature, and to admire the precision of her writing and the keenness of her eye -- this is another selection of her work that gives a lot to its reader.
August 17, 2015
It took me 3 months to read this slim volume because each time I finished a page I would want to go back and re-read it because it was so good. I love Mary Oliver's poetry, and her prose is almost as beautiful. I'll be returning to this one again and again.
August 10, 2020
"You too can be carved anew by the details of your devotions."
May 6, 2025
Každý večer som sa tešila do postele ako si prečítam ďalší kúsok, trošku ako keď som sa tešila na ďalšiu čokoládu z adventného kalendára. Aj keď som čítala večer, mala som pocit že je izba zaliata slnkom a ja som bola zaľúbená do celého sveta.
October 10, 2017
I guess I have a shriveled black-tar heart, because I just find Mary Oliver's work here cloying, saccharine, and overly sincere.
Additionally, these essays don't seem to be well-organized-- the Emerson/Hawthorne literature introductions are clearly filler, and the amount of repetition in material is hard to miss.
But if you like reading about somebody getting up at 5 AM every day and looking at the water, sky, grass, birds, and occasionally maybe a fox, and then feeling rapturous about nature... well, this book is chock full of that specific combination of things!
Additionally, these essays don't seem to be well-organized-- the Emerson/Hawthorne literature introductions are clearly filler, and the amount of repetition in material is hard to miss.
But if you like reading about somebody getting up at 5 AM every day and looking at the water, sky, grass, birds, and occasionally maybe a fox, and then feeling rapturous about nature... well, this book is chock full of that specific combination of things!
May 14, 2014
In the foreword Oliver writes, "I would rather write poems than prose..." I would rather READ poems than prose. Yet Oliver's prose always seems more like a pleasant conversation than anything else. This book is just that- a wonderful conversation with the author; and the poems interspersed are so enjoyable to "stumble" upon after reading the prose.
November 19, 2020
2,5 csillag
Ez egy elég szedett-vedett gyűjtemény volt. Egyik részről a szokásos természet-Mary Oliver-kutyák-harmónia vonalat vitte a versekben és néhány esszében (bár némelyik inkább tűnt naplóbejegyzésnek, nem értek én ehhez a műfajhoz.) Mellettük meg ott voltak az Emersonról, Hawthorne-ról és nem emlékszem, volt-e másról azok az elemző esszék, amiket nem tudtam hova tenni. Az igazsághoz az is hozzá tartozik, hogy ezek igazából jobban lekötöttek, egyszerűen csak nem számítottam rájuk, nem találtam kapcsolódási pontot a két téma között azóta sem.
Hawthorne-tól nem olvastam A skarlát betűt (meg mást sem), és megmondom őszintén, hogy ezek után sem akarom, ismerem az ízlésemet, nagyon szenvednék vele. Így legalább a lényeget el tudtam olvasni összefoglalva, és megértettem, miért fontos mű. Emersontól van egy ezeréves, borzasztó kötésű angol esszékötetem, és talán egyszer beleolvastam, de ebben sem vagyok biztos. Ha rám jön az esszéolvashatnék, még az is lehet, hogy ez változni fog.
A természetközeli esszék és versek most valahogy nem igazán fogtak meg, olyan semmilyennek voltak, kicsit triviálisak vagy az én ízlésemnek már túl….túl.
Ami viszont nagyon tetszett, és kár lett volna, ha kihagyom ezt a gyűjteményt, az az előszó volt. Mary Oliver leírja, hogy ő hogyan áll a vers-, illetve az esszéíráshoz. Az egy szép gondolatmenet volt, és egy nagy lépéssel közelebb kerültem ahhoz, hogy megismerjem ezt a nőt, akinek már sokadik kötetét olvasom, és még a felénél sem tartok.
April 17, 2025
Both Oliver’s poetry and prose had me in tears so many times while reading. Her North Star — her religion, if you will — is Nature, and that perspective is something greatly needed right now, I think.
In her writings, Oliver is a champion of awe, hope, devotion, and reverence for something that is real, interconnected, and greater than any one person or being. In paying great attention to the minute details of her everyday life and sharing her musings on them, Oliver creates a feeling of wonder that is accessible to all — if you just take the time to look, observe, feel, and reflect on your surroundings.
I know I’ll keep coming back to this book for years to come. I especially loved her “Sand Dabs” series.
Sharing one prose passage I loved, but honestly, there were so many lovely writings packed into this brief collection:
“It is one of the perils of our so-called civilized age that we do not yet acknowledge enough, or cherish enough, this connection between soul and landscape—between our own best possibilities, and the view from our own windows. We need the world as much as it needs us, and we need it in privacy, intimacy, and surety. We need the field from which the lark rises—bird that is more than itself, that is the voice of the universe: vigorous, godly joy. Without the physical world such hope is: hacked off. Is: dried up. Without wilderness no fish could leap and flash, no deer could bound soft as eternal waters over the field; no bird could open its wings and become buoyant, adventurous, valorous beyond even the plan of nature. Nor could we.”
- From the essay “Home”
In her writings, Oliver is a champion of awe, hope, devotion, and reverence for something that is real, interconnected, and greater than any one person or being. In paying great attention to the minute details of her everyday life and sharing her musings on them, Oliver creates a feeling of wonder that is accessible to all — if you just take the time to look, observe, feel, and reflect on your surroundings.
I know I’ll keep coming back to this book for years to come. I especially loved her “Sand Dabs” series.
Sharing one prose passage I loved, but honestly, there were so many lovely writings packed into this brief collection:
“It is one of the perils of our so-called civilized age that we do not yet acknowledge enough, or cherish enough, this connection between soul and landscape—between our own best possibilities, and the view from our own windows. We need the world as much as it needs us, and we need it in privacy, intimacy, and surety. We need the field from which the lark rises—bird that is more than itself, that is the voice of the universe: vigorous, godly joy. Without the physical world such hope is: hacked off. Is: dried up. Without wilderness no fish could leap and flash, no deer could bound soft as eternal waters over the field; no bird could open its wings and become buoyant, adventurous, valorous beyond even the plan of nature. Nor could we.”
- From the essay “Home”
February 6, 2024
The energy of attempt is greater than the surety of stasis
you too can be carved anew by the details of your devotions
It is the intimate, never the general, that is teacherly. The idea of love is not love. The idea of ocean is neither salt nor sand; the face of the seal cannot rise from the idea to stare at you, to astound your heart. Time must grow thick and merry with incidents, before thought can begin
i love mary oliver
you too can be carved anew by the details of your devotions
It is the intimate, never the general, that is teacherly. The idea of love is not love. The idea of ocean is neither salt nor sand; the face of the seal cannot rise from the idea to stare at you, to astound your heart. Time must grow thick and merry with incidents, before thought can begin
i love mary oliver
May 28, 2021
it was nice, i love mary oliver.
Read
June 4, 2024Mary Oliver is a woman I could spend hours learning from and still feel like it wasn't enough. This book was filled with tiny nuggets of wisdom that expand on the meaning of life. I especially enjoyed the love letter to Emerson. Worth a read for anyone interested in a wonderful poet choosing to write prose about what inspires them and their corner of the world.
March 11, 2015
Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets, indeed, one of my favorite writers. Her curious, sharp intellect, her love-affair with the natural world and her devotion, combine to create unforgettable, breathtaking works.
This collection of essays, is both more and less than that. There are essays, yes, but also poems. Her prose is as lucid and luminous as her poetry. In the first two sections of this collection she writes of tides and grasses, of herons and plovers and small white dogs, of kelp and toads, snakes and raspberries, wild carrots and a town's burn dump. All with equal wonder, with an eye to God everywhere.
The third section is a reprint of Oliver's introductions to the Modern Library works of Wordsworth and Hawthorne. I found them interesting, but perhaps a bit out of place. They felt like filler.
The final section contains more poems and a few short essays, one of which is called 'Home'. The final paragraph is:
"It is one of the perils of our so-called civilized age that we do not yet acknowledge enough, or cherish enough, this connection between soul and landscape--between our own best possibilities and the view from our own windows. We need the world as much as it needs us, and we need it in privacy, intimacy, and surety. We need the field from which the lark rises--bird that is more than itself, that is the voice of the universe: vigorous, godly joy. Without the physical wold such hope is: hacked off. Is: dried up. Without wilderness no fish could leap and flash, no deer could bound soft as eternal waters over the field; no bird could open its wings and become buoyant, adventurous, valorous beyond even the plan of nature. Nor could we."
There were two other pieces that seem to me connected to this idea of soul and place and God. The first is from "Three Histories and a Humminbird":
"What can we do about God, who makes and then breaks every god-forsake, beautiful day?
What can we do about all those graves
in the wood, in old pastures in small town in the
bellies of cities?
God's heavy footsteps through the bracken through the bog through the dark wood his breath like a swollen river
his switch, lopping the flowers, forgive me, Lord, how I
still, sometimes,
crave understanding."
And this, the last stanza from "By the Wild-Haired Corn":
"I grow soft in my speech,
and soft in my thoughts,
and I remember how everything will be everything else,
by and by."
It's been my experience that the best writing grants us the gift of recognition, that moment when we raise our eyes from the book, our finger marking the place in the page where we found ourselves, as we say, in open-mouthed wonder, "Yes, that's it, that's the thing I've always known."
So, yes, that.
This collection of essays, is both more and less than that. There are essays, yes, but also poems. Her prose is as lucid and luminous as her poetry. In the first two sections of this collection she writes of tides and grasses, of herons and plovers and small white dogs, of kelp and toads, snakes and raspberries, wild carrots and a town's burn dump. All with equal wonder, with an eye to God everywhere.
The third section is a reprint of Oliver's introductions to the Modern Library works of Wordsworth and Hawthorne. I found them interesting, but perhaps a bit out of place. They felt like filler.
The final section contains more poems and a few short essays, one of which is called 'Home'. The final paragraph is:
"It is one of the perils of our so-called civilized age that we do not yet acknowledge enough, or cherish enough, this connection between soul and landscape--between our own best possibilities and the view from our own windows. We need the world as much as it needs us, and we need it in privacy, intimacy, and surety. We need the field from which the lark rises--bird that is more than itself, that is the voice of the universe: vigorous, godly joy. Without the physical wold such hope is: hacked off. Is: dried up. Without wilderness no fish could leap and flash, no deer could bound soft as eternal waters over the field; no bird could open its wings and become buoyant, adventurous, valorous beyond even the plan of nature. Nor could we."
There were two other pieces that seem to me connected to this idea of soul and place and God. The first is from "Three Histories and a Humminbird":
"What can we do about God, who makes and then breaks every god-forsake, beautiful day?
What can we do about all those graves
in the wood, in old pastures in small town in the
bellies of cities?
God's heavy footsteps through the bracken through the bog through the dark wood his breath like a swollen river
his switch, lopping the flowers, forgive me, Lord, how I
still, sometimes,
crave understanding."
And this, the last stanza from "By the Wild-Haired Corn":
"I grow soft in my speech,
and soft in my thoughts,
and I remember how everything will be everything else,
by and by."
It's been my experience that the best writing grants us the gift of recognition, that moment when we raise our eyes from the book, our finger marking the place in the page where we found ourselves, as we say, in open-mouthed wonder, "Yes, that's it, that's the thing I've always known."
So, yes, that.
Read
November 9, 2020"I have written two books about writing poetry, and this is not another one. I hoped to shun that subject altogether. I have failed, but only very briefly and I hope in a sporting manner. In time I will keep silence altogether. Poets must read and study, but also they must learn to tilt and whisper, shout, or dance, each in his or her own way, or we might just as well copy the old books. But, no, that would never do, for always the new self swimming around in the old world feels itself uniquely verbal. And that is just the point: how the world, moist and bountiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. “Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?” This book is my comment."
Slowly discovering Mary Oliver and signs of change: I was never one for reflections/descriptions of nature, but, this year, when all else has come to standstill, most of my time has been spent observing the slow punctuations of the everyday through the plants, the sea and the forest, most often - with my dog by my side. So Oliver's writing on walking and thinking with her dog resonates deeply; Oliver's writing on the way her dog perceives the world and its excitement (echoing her Thirst, echoing, amongst other things, Eileen Myles and Donna Haraway) provides comfort.
Besides the observance of nature, it's the figure of M. and their quotidian together that is gloriously beautiful:
"M. is both a sleuth and a shepherd. She would know all stories that are gone now, dispersed to the wind, to the ages, through layers of uncaring, lost in pigeonholes in the backs of abandoned desks, or the files of defunct institutions, or the sagging brown boxes in yard sales in summer, in distant towns, bought at last for a dollar or a song, and put into someone’s car and driven off, or—unsold at the end of the long warm day—carried up the stairs and put back, for another season, under the eaves of the old barn. From none of this can M. back away, or remain indifferent."
As a person/reader, I am very guarded of overtly ecstatic descriptions of praise and devotion, and I remain not thoroughly seduced by Oliver's work. It is comforting, however. A glimpse into a world-building project that is truly foreign, and, in some aspects, near to my own.
Slowly discovering Mary Oliver and signs of change: I was never one for reflections/descriptions of nature, but, this year, when all else has come to standstill, most of my time has been spent observing the slow punctuations of the everyday through the plants, the sea and the forest, most often - with my dog by my side. So Oliver's writing on walking and thinking with her dog resonates deeply; Oliver's writing on the way her dog perceives the world and its excitement (echoing her Thirst, echoing, amongst other things, Eileen Myles and Donna Haraway) provides comfort.
Besides the observance of nature, it's the figure of M. and their quotidian together that is gloriously beautiful:
"M. is both a sleuth and a shepherd. She would know all stories that are gone now, dispersed to the wind, to the ages, through layers of uncaring, lost in pigeonholes in the backs of abandoned desks, or the files of defunct institutions, or the sagging brown boxes in yard sales in summer, in distant towns, bought at last for a dollar or a song, and put into someone’s car and driven off, or—unsold at the end of the long warm day—carried up the stairs and put back, for another season, under the eaves of the old barn. From none of this can M. back away, or remain indifferent."
As a person/reader, I am very guarded of overtly ecstatic descriptions of praise and devotion, and I remain not thoroughly seduced by Oliver's work. It is comforting, however. A glimpse into a world-building project that is truly foreign, and, in some aspects, near to my own.
July 29, 2019
A beautiful collection of essays and poems to savor!
Read
March 26, 2024Exquisite. Haunting. Jaw-drop kind of reading. Poets should write more prose, because it is as exquisite as poetry.
December 31, 2023
“That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. “Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?””
“How can we not know that, already, we live in paradise?
But even paradise must have rules. I do not know whether or not these rules were engendered in the beginning by divine deftness or by chance. I rather think chance was the origin—though perhaps the chance was offered divinely—for the rules are neither nice nor neat; simply workable, and therefore, in the quest for life rather than no-life, sublime. Every vitality must have a mechanism that recommends it to existence—what seems like ornamentation or phantasm is pure utility. It comes from an engine of mist and electricity that may be playful, and must be assertive. And also, against the odds of endurance in the great-shouldered sea, prolific.”
“The different and the novel are sweet, but regularity and repetition are also teachers. Divine attentiveness cannot be kept casually, or visited only in season, like Venice or Switzerland. Or, perhaps it can, but then how attentive is it? And if you have no ceremony, no habits, which may be opulent or may be simple but are exact and rigorous and familiar, how can you reach toward the actuality of faith, or even a moral life, except vaguely? The patterns of our lives reveal us. Our habits measure us. Our battles with our habits speak of dreams yet to become real. I would like to be like the fox, earnest in devotion and humor both, or the brave, compliant pond shutting its heavy door for the long winter. But, not yet have I reached that bright life or that white happiness—not yet.”
“it is the natural world that has always offered the hint of our single and immense divinity—a million unopened fountains. In such a mood then, not of understanding but of knowing I am blessed even as moving from shade to sunlight we feel the engendering heat, I live my life.”
“we might, in our lives, have many thresholds, many houses to walk out from and view the stars, or to turn and go back to for warmth and company. But the real one—the actual house not of beams and nails but of existence itself—is all of earth, with no door, no address separate from oceans or stars, or from pleasure or wretchedness either, or hope, or weakness, or greed.
How wonderful that the universe is beautiful in so 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. Nevertheless, its intonations are our best tonics, if we would take them. For the universe is full of radiant suggestion. For whatever reason, the heart cannot separate the world’s appearance and actions from morality and valor, and the power of every idea is intensified, if not actually created, by its expression in substance. Over and over in the butterfly we see the idea of transcendence. In the forest we see not the inert but the aspiring. In water that departs forever and forever returns, we experience eternity”
“there are few stories in the world, after all. There is the story of Wickedness, the story of Good, the story of Love, and the story of Time. It is the telling that is the charm, for it is the expression that gives to our imaginations the experience of the tale.”
“such beauty as the earth offers must hold great meaning. So I began to consider the world as emblematic as well as real, and saw that it was—that shining word—virtuous. That it offers us, as surely as the wheat and the lilies grow, the dream of virtue.
I think of this every day. I think of it when I meet the turtle with its patient green face, or hear the hawk’s tin-tongued skittering cry, or watch the otters at play in the pond. I am blood and bone however that happened, but I am convictions of my singular experience and my own thought, and they are made greatly of the hours of the earth, rough or smooth, but never less than intimate, poetic, dreamy, adamant, ferocious, loving, life-shaping.”
“In the woods, the buck I have seen all summer in his red coat has gone to market and exchanged it for a plain brown one, warmer, for the coming months. Did I not see him also last year? And the year before? Suddenly it crosses the mind—the here and the now are, at the same time, the everywhere, and the forever.”
“How can we not know that, already, we live in paradise?
But even paradise must have rules. I do not know whether or not these rules were engendered in the beginning by divine deftness or by chance. I rather think chance was the origin—though perhaps the chance was offered divinely—for the rules are neither nice nor neat; simply workable, and therefore, in the quest for life rather than no-life, sublime. Every vitality must have a mechanism that recommends it to existence—what seems like ornamentation or phantasm is pure utility. It comes from an engine of mist and electricity that may be playful, and must be assertive. And also, against the odds of endurance in the great-shouldered sea, prolific.”
“The different and the novel are sweet, but regularity and repetition are also teachers. Divine attentiveness cannot be kept casually, or visited only in season, like Venice or Switzerland. Or, perhaps it can, but then how attentive is it? And if you have no ceremony, no habits, which may be opulent or may be simple but are exact and rigorous and familiar, how can you reach toward the actuality of faith, or even a moral life, except vaguely? The patterns of our lives reveal us. Our habits measure us. Our battles with our habits speak of dreams yet to become real. I would like to be like the fox, earnest in devotion and humor both, or the brave, compliant pond shutting its heavy door for the long winter. But, not yet have I reached that bright life or that white happiness—not yet.”
“it is the natural world that has always offered the hint of our single and immense divinity—a million unopened fountains. In such a mood then, not of understanding but of knowing I am blessed even as moving from shade to sunlight we feel the engendering heat, I live my life.”
“we might, in our lives, have many thresholds, many houses to walk out from and view the stars, or to turn and go back to for warmth and company. But the real one—the actual house not of beams and nails but of existence itself—is all of earth, with no door, no address separate from oceans or stars, or from pleasure or wretchedness either, or hope, or weakness, or greed.
How wonderful that the universe is beautiful in so 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. Nevertheless, its intonations are our best tonics, if we would take them. For the universe is full of radiant suggestion. For whatever reason, the heart cannot separate the world’s appearance and actions from morality and valor, and the power of every idea is intensified, if not actually created, by its expression in substance. Over and over in the butterfly we see the idea of transcendence. In the forest we see not the inert but the aspiring. In water that departs forever and forever returns, we experience eternity”
“there are few stories in the world, after all. There is the story of Wickedness, the story of Good, the story of Love, and the story of Time. It is the telling that is the charm, for it is the expression that gives to our imaginations the experience of the tale.”
“such beauty as the earth offers must hold great meaning. So I began to consider the world as emblematic as well as real, and saw that it was—that shining word—virtuous. That it offers us, as surely as the wheat and the lilies grow, the dream of virtue.
I think of this every day. I think of it when I meet the turtle with its patient green face, or hear the hawk’s tin-tongued skittering cry, or watch the otters at play in the pond. I am blood and bone however that happened, but I am convictions of my singular experience and my own thought, and they are made greatly of the hours of the earth, rough or smooth, but never less than intimate, poetic, dreamy, adamant, ferocious, loving, life-shaping.”
“In the woods, the buck I have seen all summer in his red coat has gone to market and exchanged it for a plain brown one, warmer, for the coming months. Did I not see him also last year? And the year before? Suddenly it crosses the mind—the here and the now are, at the same time, the everywhere, and the forever.”
January 31, 2025
«¿Qué significa, me repiten, que la tierra sea tan hermosa? ¿Y qué he de hacer yo al respecto? ¿Cuál es el regalo que debo brindarle yo al mundo? ¿Cuál es la vida que he de vivir?»
Siempre que se publica algo de Mary Oliver en castellano es motivo de celebración, al menos para mí. Me encanta la forma tan natural que tiene de hablar de la paz y la calma que le aporta la naturaleza y el aire libre, y su manera tan profunda de observar cada detalle del día a día. Desde el cielo o el mar hasta el bosque cercano a su casa por el que suele caminar a diario.
Creo que nos recuerda la necesidad y la fortaleza que nos aporta vivir en el momento observando la belleza de lo que hay a nuestro alrededor, dejándonos llevar por las sensaciones que nos produce y mirando con atención lo que tiene que ofrecernos.
Aunque tengo que decir que, para mí, este libro está muy por debajo de «La escritura indómita» y «Horas de invierno», no solo nos trae este tipo de pasajes, sino también recuerdos de su vida en común con su pareja (Molly Malone) —que me recordó al libro «Nuestro mundo» sobre su relación, que publicó @comisura—, algunos de sus poemas —que son una maravilla— y ensayos de escritores.
En este, nos habla de Emerson y Hawthorne y cómo su relación con el mundo y la naturaleza influyó en su obra, así como en la profundidad psicológica de sus personajes. Como ha hecho anteriormente, me ha dado muchas ganas de leerles porque siento que les conozco un poco más gracias a la gran documentación de Oliver y, sobre todo, su vinculación emocional y su amor por ellos, ya que se nota que ambos han influido en ella como escritora.
Pero, quizás, lo que más me ha gustado han sido sus breves reflexiones («Por encima de todo arriésgate. Canta, como sangre corriendo por la vena»), sus recuerdos familiares y de infancia, y los de su vida en pareja.
En resumen, creo que no es una autora para todo el mundo, pero a mí me transmite paz y me llama a la reflexión, la atención y la observación de mi alrededor. Que nos habla de qué es lo que nos une a otros seres humanos, por qué algunas personas necesitamos la lectura cómo encontrar nuestra forma —íntima y personal— de pensar y ver el mundo.
Siempre que se publica algo de Mary Oliver en castellano es motivo de celebración, al menos para mí. Me encanta la forma tan natural que tiene de hablar de la paz y la calma que le aporta la naturaleza y el aire libre, y su manera tan profunda de observar cada detalle del día a día. Desde el cielo o el mar hasta el bosque cercano a su casa por el que suele caminar a diario.
Creo que nos recuerda la necesidad y la fortaleza que nos aporta vivir en el momento observando la belleza de lo que hay a nuestro alrededor, dejándonos llevar por las sensaciones que nos produce y mirando con atención lo que tiene que ofrecernos.
Aunque tengo que decir que, para mí, este libro está muy por debajo de «La escritura indómita» y «Horas de invierno», no solo nos trae este tipo de pasajes, sino también recuerdos de su vida en común con su pareja (Molly Malone) —que me recordó al libro «Nuestro mundo» sobre su relación, que publicó @comisura—, algunos de sus poemas —que son una maravilla— y ensayos de escritores.
En este, nos habla de Emerson y Hawthorne y cómo su relación con el mundo y la naturaleza influyó en su obra, así como en la profundidad psicológica de sus personajes. Como ha hecho anteriormente, me ha dado muchas ganas de leerles porque siento que les conozco un poco más gracias a la gran documentación de Oliver y, sobre todo, su vinculación emocional y su amor por ellos, ya que se nota que ambos han influido en ella como escritora.
Pero, quizás, lo que más me ha gustado han sido sus breves reflexiones («Por encima de todo arriésgate. Canta, como sangre corriendo por la vena»), sus recuerdos familiares y de infancia, y los de su vida en pareja.
En resumen, creo que no es una autora para todo el mundo, pero a mí me transmite paz y me llama a la reflexión, la atención y la observación de mi alrededor. Que nos habla de qué es lo que nos une a otros seres humanos, por qué algunas personas necesitamos la lectura cómo encontrar nuestra forma —íntima y personal— de pensar y ver el mundo.
March 4, 2018
There are so many proses, poems, and indeed profound thoughts one could discover from the book. This collection of essays and other writings is going to share plenty of contemplative moments to the readers as myself has discovered as personal journey with the help of the author.
So, I guess I have to keep some room in my heart for the unimaginable life, the beauty of life and its surroundings, wounds and grieves, all the memories. As Mary the author have underlined in her foreword, "Poets must read and study, but also they must learn to tilt and whisper, shout, or dance, each in his or her own way, or we might just as well copy the old books. But, no, that would never do, for always the new self swimming around in the old world feels itself uniquely verbal. And that is just the point: how the world, moist and bountiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. 'Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?' This book is my comment"
So, I guess I have to keep some room in my heart for the unimaginable life, the beauty of life and its surroundings, wounds and grieves, all the memories. As Mary the author have underlined in her foreword, "Poets must read and study, but also they must learn to tilt and whisper, shout, or dance, each in his or her own way, or we might just as well copy the old books. But, no, that would never do, for always the new self swimming around in the old world feels itself uniquely verbal. And that is just the point: how the world, moist and bountiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. 'Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?' This book is my comment"
June 2, 2025
(4,5)
Una variopinta selección de textos, poemas y reflexiones. Me han gustado especialmente la profunda admiración por la naturaleza que refleja la autora y su invitación a contemplar lo extraordinario en el entorno más próximo y cotidiano. Aunque algunos pasajes de ensayo me han interesado un poco menos, en general creo que se trata de una obra preciosa e interesante, capaz de conectar con lugares profundos del corazón y que encierra pequeñas dosis de sabiduría auténtica. La edición, por otra parte, también me ha resultado preciosa. Un pequeño regalo.
Una variopinta selección de textos, poemas y reflexiones. Me han gustado especialmente la profunda admiración por la naturaleza que refleja la autora y su invitación a contemplar lo extraordinario en el entorno más próximo y cotidiano. Aunque algunos pasajes de ensayo me han interesado un poco menos, en general creo que se trata de una obra preciosa e interesante, capaz de conectar con lugares profundos del corazón y que encierra pequeñas dosis de sabiduría auténtica. La edición, por otra parte, también me ha resultado preciosa. Un pequeño regalo.
July 26, 2017
Mary Oliver writes that she doesn't like writing prose as much as she loves writing poetry, and I do love her poetry most, but I also LOVE her prose. This book was a lovely compilation of both essays and poems. I really loved the inclusion of her introductions to several Hawthorne novels and a book of Emerson's work, as I recently learned she had penned these introductions. I love what she writes about books and stories and she is just always marvelous.
Read
September 8, 2023“And if you have no ceremony, no habits, which may be opulent or may be simple but are exact and rigorous and familiar, how can you reach toward the actuality of faith, or even a moral life, except vaguely?”
February 7, 2025
What did not work for me:
-the chapter taken straight out of her other book, dog songs (I like the chapter, I just don’t want to reread the same material in a different book).
- the odd decision to include several chapters that were actually introductions she wrote for books by other authors on Hawthorne and Emerson. I felt they didn’t fit here, and once I came upon the explanation that they were actually introductions for other books it made sense why I felt that way.
What did work for me:
-The poems, the poems, the poems
- the natural world
- her musings
-the chapter taken straight out of her other book, dog songs (I like the chapter, I just don’t want to reread the same material in a different book).
- the odd decision to include several chapters that were actually introductions she wrote for books by other authors on Hawthorne and Emerson. I felt they didn’t fit here, and once I came upon the explanation that they were actually introductions for other books it made sense why I felt that way.
What did work for me:
-The poems, the poems, the poems
- the natural world
- her musings
November 26, 2023
You can find my reactions/commentary at contemplativereading.com. Upcoming for Dec. 2023 is Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 216 reviews