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Little Alleluias: Collected Poetry and Prose
A curated compendium of poetry and prose from the award-winning poet Mary Oliver, including the book-length masterpiece The Leaf and the Cloud, the collection What Do We Know, andessays from Long Life—with a foreword by fellow Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Postcolonial Love Poem Natalie Diaz.
For the many admirers of Mary Oliver's breathtaking poetry of touch and transcendence, as well as for those coming to her words for the first time, Little Alleluias is a revelation.
These works observe, search, pause, astonish, and give thanks to both love and the natural world. In constant conversation with the sublime, (i.e. "Are you afraid? / Somewhere a thousand swans are flying / through winter's worst storm."), Oliver has the rare skill of rendering her poems bring movement to stillness, and people to the Earth, themselves, and each other. Her essays declare her heart and her home, too, alongside thoughts on Wordsworth, Emerson, and Hawthorne—the odes and elegies of Provincetown's resident poet.
On each page, Mary Oliver invites us to walk through her minutes, her moments, and revere the light and dark and rainbowed clothes of world alongside her. With three distinct books collected in one volume for the first time, Little Alleluias asks what passes and what persists, and offers readers the peace that every life deserves.
“Hers is a purposeful language, one that looks not just with attention but with sensual intention, and though awestruck, seeks to hold, even briefly, the unknowns of the energies that make any life. Little alleluias, she called her writings. Not meant to define but to praise, to rejoice in the maker and what has been made, to dare be heard as a whisper or a shout in this immense world.”—Natalie Diaz, in her Foreword
For the many admirers of Mary Oliver's breathtaking poetry of touch and transcendence, as well as for those coming to her words for the first time, Little Alleluias is a revelation.
These works observe, search, pause, astonish, and give thanks to both love and the natural world. In constant conversation with the sublime, (i.e. "Are you afraid? / Somewhere a thousand swans are flying / through winter's worst storm."), Oliver has the rare skill of rendering her poems bring movement to stillness, and people to the Earth, themselves, and each other. Her essays declare her heart and her home, too, alongside thoughts on Wordsworth, Emerson, and Hawthorne—the odes and elegies of Provincetown's resident poet.
On each page, Mary Oliver invites us to walk through her minutes, her moments, and revere the light and dark and rainbowed clothes of world alongside her. With three distinct books collected in one volume for the first time, Little Alleluias asks what passes and what persists, and offers readers the peace that every life deserves.
“Hers is a purposeful language, one that looks not just with attention but with sensual intention, and though awestruck, seeks to hold, even briefly, the unknowns of the energies that make any life. Little alleluias, she called her writings. Not meant to define but to praise, to rejoice in the maker and what has been made, to dare be heard as a whisper or a shout in this immense world.”—Natalie Diaz, in her Foreword
256 pages, Paperback
First published September 9, 2025
133 people are currently reading
5849 people want to read
About the author
Mary Oliver
105 books8,873 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 90 reviews
June 19, 2025
that Mary Oliver poem will save you btw
September 21, 2025
I would say I’m a fan of Mary Oliver’s poetry, although I have not read much of her work. She is very nature orientated, which I can usually connect with. Poetry is hard to rate, hard to judge, usually I just go by if I connected with the poem or not.
With this collection of poetry and essays, prose poems, I found myself not connecting. I’m not sure why either. Nature was there, throughout the book, with the exception of the essays on the Concord writers Hawthorne and Emerson (perhaps my favorite part of this collection).
Not sure what it was about these works, I just kept reading and hoped for one or two that really spoke to me, but honestly none did. Yet, even here I can see she is a good writer.
Thanks Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.
With this collection of poetry and essays, prose poems, I found myself not connecting. I’m not sure why either. Nature was there, throughout the book, with the exception of the essays on the Concord writers Hawthorne and Emerson (perhaps my favorite part of this collection).
Not sure what it was about these works, I just kept reading and hoped for one or two that really spoke to me, but honestly none did. Yet, even here I can see she is a good writer.
Thanks Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.
August 26, 2025
"Little Alleluias" is a wonderful introduction to the poems and lyrical prose of Mary Oliver. Reading these works is like taking a walk through nature and stopping to appreciate everything around you, from the smallest grain of sand or seed to the vastness of the ocean or the night sky. The writing is absolutely gorgeous and I cannot believe I've lived so many years without Mary Oliver's words in my life. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for introducing me to Oliver's art. Five bright and shiny stars!
August 25, 2025
There's no one like Mary Oliver to make you pause and wonder, What am I even doing with my life? This compilation of some of her evocative poetry and prose does that masterfully. As I read, I felt convinced that I, too, should be dressing in the dark and going out to wander my stretch of the world until I know it like the back of my hand. The peace and awe she experiences in nature become portals for her to contemplate everything from aging, to faith, to grief over a beloved dog, and beyond. As always, her writing is a balm for the spirit.
I especially enjoyed The Leaf and the Cloud, the long poem that begins Little Alleluias. However, I was also pleasantly surprised by the prose pieces in the later part of the book, including essays on Emerson and Hawthorne. To be honest, Oliver's prose reads a lot like poetry, but that's hardly a complaint. I also liked that the collection mixes in some poems among the essays--particularly the two "Sand Dabs" poems, which are essentially lists of Oliver-style aphorisms.
Little Alleluias is sure to delight longtime Mary Oliver fans and create new ones, too. My thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for providing me a copy in exchange for my review.
I especially enjoyed The Leaf and the Cloud, the long poem that begins Little Alleluias. However, I was also pleasantly surprised by the prose pieces in the later part of the book, including essays on Emerson and Hawthorne. To be honest, Oliver's prose reads a lot like poetry, but that's hardly a complaint. I also liked that the collection mixes in some poems among the essays--particularly the two "Sand Dabs" poems, which are essentially lists of Oliver-style aphorisms.
Little Alleluias is sure to delight longtime Mary Oliver fans and create new ones, too. My thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for providing me a copy in exchange for my review.
December 23, 2025
Little Alleluias is a transcendent posthumous collection of poetry and prose from the inimitable Mary Oliver, and its euphoric contents reconfirm how she rests within the pantheon of immortal American poets. If Whitman and Dickinson reign atop followed by Frost and Plath, their modern equivalent in carrying forward visionary greatness through the latter half of the 20th century and into early decades of the 21st is Mary Oliver.
Whoever is blessed enough with discovering the splendor of Oliver’s work will experience divine epiphanies where you feel as though you’ve seen the light. She is the quintessential poet whose gift to the world is her ability to magnify the value of life through a connection with nature’s bountiful treasures. She shows us how acts of gratitude to cherish the Earth’s cycles and its every living pulse and creature will result in fulfillment we may not have thought possible.
Oliver makes you feel like you can know whatever God you want to believe in by attuning your focus to the unnamable, inexplicable, and intelligent forces that exist to govern the universe. She makes us realize that if we put forth any effort to engage with the beauty of life and the serenity of the natural environment, we’ll see we’re already in paradise.
If you want to know joy and awe, seek no further than the multitudes that can be found when you connect with the spirit of Mary Oliver. The accessibility of her poetry is so immediate and entrancing that you can hardly believe how easily she transports your thoughts into meditative and prayerful moments where everything of value seems to make sense. I declare Mary Oliver my angel, and she can be yours too.
Whoever is blessed enough with discovering the splendor of Oliver’s work will experience divine epiphanies where you feel as though you’ve seen the light. She is the quintessential poet whose gift to the world is her ability to magnify the value of life through a connection with nature’s bountiful treasures. She shows us how acts of gratitude to cherish the Earth’s cycles and its every living pulse and creature will result in fulfillment we may not have thought possible.
Oliver makes you feel like you can know whatever God you want to believe in by attuning your focus to the unnamable, inexplicable, and intelligent forces that exist to govern the universe. She makes us realize that if we put forth any effort to engage with the beauty of life and the serenity of the natural environment, we’ll see we’re already in paradise.
If you want to know joy and awe, seek no further than the multitudes that can be found when you connect with the spirit of Mary Oliver. The accessibility of her poetry is so immediate and entrancing that you can hardly believe how easily she transports your thoughts into meditative and prayerful moments where everything of value seems to make sense. I declare Mary Oliver my angel, and she can be yours too.
August 26, 2025
You can’t conjure up an image of Mary Oliver without thinking of nature, so I knew what was waiting for me before I even opened this book. The poems had an equal mix of animals, the earth, and how we–or Oliver at least–sit around pondering all that surrounds us. I enjoyed how many poems included different birds from herons to hummingbirds, how several poems came back to the snake, and her memorable poem about bats.
I felt like the essays on writers such as Hawthorne and Emerson, for example, could have been left out. They didn’t work well with the rest of her prose, and I felt lost at some of her critiques without knowing some of the pieces she was referring to.
The rest of the book made up for it, though, and I’m thankful to Netgalley for allowing me to read it. I felt both lighter and heavier after reading Little Alleluias, with Mary Oliver knowing just how to tear at your emotions.
I felt like the essays on writers such as Hawthorne and Emerson, for example, could have been left out. They didn’t work well with the rest of her prose, and I felt lost at some of her critiques without knowing some of the pieces she was referring to.
The rest of the book made up for it, though, and I’m thankful to Netgalley for allowing me to read it. I felt both lighter and heavier after reading Little Alleluias, with Mary Oliver knowing just how to tear at your emotions.
August 12, 2025
"therefore why pray to permanence, why not pray to impermanence, to change, to-- whatever comes next."
mary oliver is a guiding light i'll follow anywhere. i loved this collection because it contained so many poems i'd never read before & lotsss of prose passages that were new.
howeverrrr, i did love the poems much more than the prose. the prose felt disjointed and disconnected from the recurring motifs. i also didn't understand why the poems and prose were arranged in the order they were. nothing felt cohesive and instead was all very scattered. although all beautiful, it seemed as if nothing was arranged with any intention. i guess that's common when an author's writings are published posthumously and without their expert eye.
as always, thanks to the publisher and netgalley for providing me with an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review!
all in all, a great way to round out the mary oliver universe. what a woman! an eternal soul!
mary oliver is a guiding light i'll follow anywhere. i loved this collection because it contained so many poems i'd never read before & lotsss of prose passages that were new.
howeverrrr, i did love the poems much more than the prose. the prose felt disjointed and disconnected from the recurring motifs. i also didn't understand why the poems and prose were arranged in the order they were. nothing felt cohesive and instead was all very scattered. although all beautiful, it seemed as if nothing was arranged with any intention. i guess that's common when an author's writings are published posthumously and without their expert eye.
as always, thanks to the publisher and netgalley for providing me with an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review!
all in all, a great way to round out the mary oliver universe. what a woman! an eternal soul!
July 28, 2025
Nature abounds in this collection of poetry and prose by the late Mary Oliver. I love how nature is her form of worship and how the joy she finds in it leaps off the pages.
I enjoyed her musings about her beloved Cape Cod and its wildlife that is experienced and appreciated in great detail on her daily walks.
I was struck by a passage about the daily discipline of a spiritual practice. Reading the book was worth it if only for this bit of wisdom about routine and the benefits of “divine attentiveness.”
What delighted me were essays about some of the residents of early Concord, MA including Emerson. What a touching tribute to this man of Nature.
Mary says, “I walk in the world to love it.” We her readers are so fortunate to be able to walk along with her.
I enjoyed her musings about her beloved Cape Cod and its wildlife that is experienced and appreciated in great detail on her daily walks.
I was struck by a passage about the daily discipline of a spiritual practice. Reading the book was worth it if only for this bit of wisdom about routine and the benefits of “divine attentiveness.”
What delighted me were essays about some of the residents of early Concord, MA including Emerson. What a touching tribute to this man of Nature.
Mary says, “I walk in the world to love it.” We her readers are so fortunate to be able to walk along with her.
July 24, 2025
If you're a Mary Oliver devotee, you'll want to pick this up. It's a continuation of all you've loved about her previous work. Reflections on life, nature, our place in the world, both in poetry and prose. There's an interlude of some writing she did about Nathanial Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson that I'm not sure felt like it fit, but if you're just looking to gather up everything Oliver has ever written, you'll likely find value there.
Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
August 11, 2025
Mary Oliver will forever be one of my all time favorite poets. Her poetry always makes me feel things so profoundly and brings me back to the earth in a grounded way. As a person that loves all things nature, her poignant reflections on the natural world always leave an impact on me. The only reason I give this 4 stars rather than 5 is because some of the longer format prose just didn't work for me - the Hawthorne/Emerson ones in particular felt out of place. That said, I still very much enjoyed this book overall and will forever love Oliver's art.
January 17, 2026
LOVE her
A few of my favorite poems were: “One Hundred White-sided dolphins on a Summer Day”, “Now Are the Rough Things Smooth”, and “Snowy Night”
Her poems are joyful and at times heart wrenching. Reminders to look around in awe!!!
Favorite line from the section of prose at the end: “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?’”
A few of my favorite poems were: “One Hundred White-sided dolphins on a Summer Day”, “Now Are the Rough Things Smooth”, and “Snowy Night”
Her poems are joyful and at times heart wrenching. Reminders to look around in awe!!!
Favorite line from the section of prose at the end: “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?’”
Read
June 15, 2025This book was given to me by NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinions.
I typically don’t rate poetry; regardless, Mary Oliver is the queen. Her appreciation and observation of the world is so refreshing. This book was an interesting mix of poetry and prose— some of the prose I didn’t care much about— like the essays on Hawthorne, but I enjoyed the one on Emerson.
I typically don’t rate poetry; regardless, Mary Oliver is the queen. Her appreciation and observation of the world is so refreshing. This book was an interesting mix of poetry and prose— some of the prose I didn’t care much about— like the essays on Hawthorne, but I enjoyed the one on Emerson.
July 9, 2025
I love Mary Oliver's poems. I found the first section of poems in this book to be beautiful and luminous. The poems in the second section had some moments that knocked me off my feet, but some of the poems didn't feel as strong or cohesive as the ones in the first section. I wasn't as taken by the last section of essays, though those too had some wonderful moments. I'm glad I read this book, and you can't really go wrong with Mary Oliver, but it didn't offer as satisfying a reading experience as some of her single volume books of poems do.
Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.
Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.
August 18, 2025
"But tell me, if you would praise the world, what is it you would leave out?"
For Mary Oliver devotees, this poetry collection will find a home on their shelf alongside Devotions. Oliver's reverence for nature, the way she weaves together musings about life, love, and faith, and the sense of wonder that her writing brings to the reader all make her into one of the greats. I am not sure how to really review poetry because it is so deeply personal, but I will say that Oliver's works resonate with me in a way that not many others do.
The only reason I'm putting this at four stars and not five is that there are a number of longer poems in here, and as a matter of personal preference I find that her shorter, more succinct poems have a stronger impact on me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for this ARC to read and review.
For Mary Oliver devotees, this poetry collection will find a home on their shelf alongside Devotions. Oliver's reverence for nature, the way she weaves together musings about life, love, and faith, and the sense of wonder that her writing brings to the reader all make her into one of the greats. I am not sure how to really review poetry because it is so deeply personal, but I will say that Oliver's works resonate with me in a way that not many others do.
The only reason I'm putting this at four stars and not five is that there are a number of longer poems in here, and as a matter of personal preference I find that her shorter, more succinct poems have a stronger impact on me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for this ARC to read and review.
November 10, 2025
“You are standing at the edge of the woods at twilight when something begins to sing, like a waterfall flowing down through the leaves.”
“The rain, and the trees, and all their kindred have brought me a comfort and modesty and a devotion to inclusiveness that I would not give up for all the gold in all of the mountains of the world.”
“The rain, and the trees, and all their kindred have brought me a comfort and modesty and a devotion to inclusiveness that I would not give up for all the gold in all of the mountains of the world.”
October 25, 2025
Mary Oliver will always get 5 stars from me ♥️ there were lines in here that hit me right in the soul.
I could have done without the essays on Emerson and Hawthorne though, found them a bit distracting.
I could have done without the essays on Emerson and Hawthorne though, found them a bit distracting.
January 6, 2026
live laugh love Mary Oliver 🌟
this was so so beautiful, to nobody’s surprise! i enjoyed the mix of work in this collection, but more so the poetry. she’s just an incredible writer overall who always leaves me with an existential crisis and a sudden desire to notice things.
this was so so beautiful, to nobody’s surprise! i enjoyed the mix of work in this collection, but more so the poetry. she’s just an incredible writer overall who always leaves me with an existential crisis and a sudden desire to notice things.
May 27, 2025
See my full review at http://michelleardillo.com/2025/05/27...
October 4, 2025
One of the most profoundly beautiful books I've read all year. Mary Oliver, I will love you forever😭🫶🏻
December 30, 2025
lovely!
January 20, 2026
Only in Mary Oliver’s work could I forgive the steady beat of religion. More than that; I find myself realising that devoutness serves as consequence of nature, and not the other way around, because nature means virtue, means true holiness.
October 18, 2025
I’ve started reading poetry every morning. Before picking up my phone, before thinking about the days schedule. This was perfect for that.
December 31, 2025
I greatly appreciate collections that draw from previously obscure portions of a canon. This was a delightful meander through Oliver’s writing I’d never encountered before.
November 15, 2025
I thought I had read just about everything written by Mary Oliver, which of course is impossible. And glad for it, as I keep coming across gems like these:
"Let grief by your sister, she will whether or no."
"A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life."
Flare
"Let grief by your sister, she will whether or no."
"A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life."
Flare
August 23, 2025
A beautiful posthumous collection, full of Oliver's signature thought-provoking verse. A particular standout for me in this collection was a short recollection of a child in a quiet, almost empty barn. Knowing that this will be released years after the author's death, the words "A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life." definitely read differently.
e-arc provided by Netgalley ❤️
e-arc provided by Netgalley ❤️
June 23, 2025
We get an amazing blend of nature focused poetry from earlier in Mary Oliver's life, and a brief prose section where she talks about her daily life with her wife (HOW DID I NOT KNOW SHE WAS A LESBIAN?!!) and the house they built out in the wild. I love that we're getting this part of her back catalogue republished in wake of her recent passing. Worth your time.
October 31, 2025
How was I supposed to feel then? About
moving in the world? How could I touch anything
or anyone without the weight of all of time shifting
through us? I was not, or I did not think I was, making
up stories; it was how the world was, or rather it is how
the world is. I've only now become better at pretending
that there are edges, boundaries, that if I touch
something it cannot always touch me back.
Ada Limón, from her new poem THE ENDLESSNESS
Of all the reasons for gladness, what could be foremost of this one, that the mind can seize both the instant and the memory! But here’s the kingdom we call remembrance with its thousand iron doors through which I pass so easily, switching on the old lights as I go— while the dead wind rises and the old rapture rewinds, the stiff waters once more begin to kick and flow. Mary Oliver, from WINTER AT HERRING COVE
The Mojave and Latinx queer poet Natalie Diaz writes in her introduction to the new compilation of Mary Oliver’s work: "Little alleluias, she called her writings. Not meant to define but to praise, to rejoice in the maker and what has been made, to dare be heard as a whisper or a shout in this immense world. Oliver’s call to make a new and serious response resounds with June Jordan’s belief that, Poetry means taking control of the / language of your life. In Oliver’s poems, seeing is also feeling and both become an overwhelm for which language is a slight anodyne or ease.”
I love her inclusion of June Jordan’s line about poetry infusing the daily words of your life. It is true. It is freeing. It makes sure you are never bored or alone, since it runs through your mind at all times, magicfying the most mundane of days or most sorrowful. I am so desperately sorry for those who don’t feel anything with poetry or poetic writing. I see them in my mind staring at the big and small screens of their life barely blinking or breathing, certainly not living a rich, full, varied life. I read Ada Limón’s new compilation Startlement and Little Alleluias at the same time, feeling the holiness of this moment, that I am alive when these two were published.
Limón writes in an article for Alta, “I write to remember because not only do I want to hold on to this life, to everything I love, but I want to behold it, wholly. Writing is a way of saying, Yes, I am here, but also we are here together, all of us, how rare, how miraculous, how awful, how utterly strange.” Beholding is a prayer, and alleluias are praise, and while there are such differences in experience, age, setting, and tone, these two books show the glory and mystery and harshness of being alive. It is asked in times of suffering, how do we sing, how do we smile, how do we go on? The two poets begin to answer that question, and they do it over and over again.
The first works I resonated with in both books were Mary Oliver’s FLARE, from 2000 and Ada Limón’s A LITTLE DISTANTLY, AS ONE SHOULD, from 2005. I feel the closeness of that separation, just 5 years, and they both speak to me so clearly. I hope they forgive me, but I will shorten their names to Ada and Mary O for the rest of the review. Ada’s tone in this book of poems, which I hadn’t read before, is the frank, open, modern autobiographical style that may or may not be true to her life but is very engaging and accessible. Storytelling in its perfection. She is writing about how storytelling can be more powerful at times than the events that happened, all the details you can put in that may not have occurred to you as it was happening and her exuberance can shine through. She writes:
My friend, all the time, says I'm so excited,
and when I ask her, for what, she just shrugs
and says, Aren't you? I suppose so. Yes.
It’s the happiness for no reason, just because. The joy that accompanies the most quiet of things. I know so many people, including me, struggle with this, that fear, anxiety, depression, worry, stress mutes all those things out, but I have learned it is a practice, and with practice becomes easier. Mary O writes in FLARE, which opens with acknowledging the despicable abuse she suffered from her parents, but also singing that she won’t carry the “iron thing they carried:”
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also, like the diligent leaves. A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life. Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away. Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance. In the glare of your mind, be modest. And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.
Another poem that compares is THE ECHO SOUNDER BY by Ada and WORK by Mary O, where they are both struggling with what to believe in when the world can be so dark. Both poems have a declaration of a belief in god, Ada here:
She understands now that bodies can swing
from trees and whole families can be
locked up, that people die the way fish do
starving sometimes, gutted and tortured
by children who think they are being
scientific and responsible. She thinks God
must know this and therefore he is ugly.
She decides God is no good, but he must exist,
he must exist so she can hold him accountable.
She decides this and then forgets.
Mary O here:
Everyday—I have work to do: I feel my body rising through the water not much more than a leaf; and I feel like the child, crazed by beauty or filled to bursting with woe; and I am the snail in the universe of the leaves trudging upward; and I am the pale lily who believes in God, though she has no word for it…
Ada is exploring the idea of an echo sounder, used in oceanography exploration, and the correlation with how an echocardiogram is an exploration of the chambers of the heart, of which we have 4, left and right atrium, left and right ventricles, chambers meaning cavities, empty areas, spaces that contain our blood in a rhythm, passed in from the body through one half, then to the lungs, back to the other side of the heart, and then to the body again. Blood is like water, water that circulates the earth through the water cycle, clouds, ground, rivers, creeks, lakes, oceans.
Mary O writes,
This is the habit of the rock in the river, over which the water pours all night and all day. But the nature of man is not the nature of silence. Words are the thunders of the mind. Words are the refinement of the flesh. Words are the responses to the thousand curvaceous moments— we just manage it— sweet and electric, words flow from the brain and out the gate of the mouth.
I will sing for the veil that never lifts. I will sing for the veil that begins, once in a lifetime, maybe, to lift. I will sing for the rent in the veil. I will sing for what is in front of the veil, the floating light. I will sing for what is behind the veil—light, light, and more light.
Ada writes about learning a beautiful word Philadelphia and using that as a code or short hand for the feeling that Mary O writes about, illumination and its song:
She is convinced that she can talk
to God and she asks him a question.
She does not get an answer, so
she makes one up. She believes the answer is:
everything stops, the food is in the mouth, .
but the mouth is not there,
the water flows, but there is no creek.
…
like the way everything can
touch you at once
…
the feeling when all those things get to you
and you want to cry or pray and because
you’re no good at either, you
tell everyone to leave you alone so you
can go on feeling the world climbing around
in your body like you were just as much
a part of it as it was of you, maybe, she thought,
she could call that feeling Philadelphia.
Both ways, either way, it is song that we are so fortunate to be alive to read right now, and if we were alive in 2000 and 2005, to be alive when written.
There are so many connections through time and space. One of my favorite lines from Ada is from From SHARKS IN THE RIVERS title poem from 2010:
I cannot tell anymore when a door opens or closes,
I can only hear the frame saying, Walk through.
Mary O’s door reference, also from FLARE,
But the poem wants to flower, like a flower. It knows that much. It wants to open itself, like the doorof a little temple, so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed, and less yourself than part of everything.
Or a leaf simultaneously falling from a tree and travelling the cosmos, ways the poets see the object differently, but inhabit the same corner of my mind:
and will you find yourself finally wanting to forget all enclosures, including the enclosure of yourself, o lonelyleaf, and will you dash finally, frantically, to the windows and haul them open and lean out to the dark, silvered sky, to everything that is beyond capture, shouting I’m here, I’m here! Now, now, now, now, now. From Mary O’s THE BOOK OF TIME
From Ada’s IN PRAISE OF MYSTERY: A POEM FOR EUROPA, written for the space flight where my name was inscribed:
there are mysteries below our sky:
the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.
We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.
And it is not darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,
each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
Ada uses the word mountain 17 times, and Mary O only 6 but there is a connection from looking at the microcosm to the macrocosm, which is one of my favorite exercises.
Mary O, speaking of a small rock that was once a mountain in STONES, so that the stone holds the image of a grand place of worship, as well as the future potential of natural cathedrals like the Maroon Bells:
The white stones were mountains, then they went traveling. The pink stones also were part of a mountain before the glacier’s tongue gathered them up. Now they lie resting under the waves…Each one is a tiny church, locked up tight.
Ada writing in LET LOOSE (my favorite new Ada poem!!!) about becoming part of a mountain in a sacred way, intangible and protected, like the stones at the bottom of the ocean.
...watch each part
of me released and become something entirely
acrobatic and weightless, not flying, but not falling
just entirely in love with the air, oh look at how
gorgeous I am! Falling away from myself, no body
at all, just the mountain, just the breath
of the mountain, no not even the breath
of the mountain, nothing that can be hurt, or taken,
nothing that can be broken into or scarred,
something invisible and just how I imagined.
or in the Ada’s GEOGRAPHY OF MOUNTAINS, about going home to her hometown and childhood home, mountains and woman as the source of everything:
After all these years, I am waking up.
After all these years, I’ve come home, to the valley,
And now I know well the mountains that looks
Like a woman sleeping. I can point at her curves.
I know also that all mountains
Are women sleeping, dissolving imperceptibly,
Stretched out at last, alone, at rest,
The source of everything.
Back to Mary O in a prose section where she is celebrating staying in one place to learn it in quiet, receptive moments, so actually the absence of a mountain:
My story contains neither a mountain, nor a canyon, nor a blizzard, nor hail, nor spike of wind striking the earth and lifting whatever is in its path. I think the rare and wonderful awareness I felt would not have arrived in any such busy hour…Yet I would hazard this guess, that it is more likely to happen to someone attentively entering the quiet moment, when the sun-soaked world is gliding on under the blessings of blue sky, and the wind god is asleep. Then, if ever, we may peek under the veil of all appearances and partialities. 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.
Ada coins a term, “breaknecking,” about a speeding truck, and Mary O creates a term, “mindroaming,” which at first seem unrelated, a truck and a river, but it shimmers in my mind as compatible, there is daydreaming in a slow, lazy fashion but if you need the mystery and delight, it also can come, sometimes must come at a breakneck speed to fight the darknesses of the world:
And then, thinking of those bodies of water, I go mindroaming. I could name a hundred events, hours, creatures, that have filled me with delight, and fructifying praise. Experience, experience!-with the rain, and the trees, and all their kindred- has brought me a comfort and a modesty and a devotion to inclusiveness that I would not give up for all the gold in all the mountains of the world. This I knew, as I grew from simple delight toward thought and into conviction: such beauty as the earth offers must hold great meaning.
There are dozens more, and I hope that if anyone else out there reads both, does a deep reading exercise and finds the threads that weave and bind and separate both poets, my sheroes, who illuminate the way in these times.
moving in the world? How could I touch anything
or anyone without the weight of all of time shifting
through us? I was not, or I did not think I was, making
up stories; it was how the world was, or rather it is how
the world is. I've only now become better at pretending
that there are edges, boundaries, that if I touch
something it cannot always touch me back.
Ada Limón, from her new poem THE ENDLESSNESS
Of all the reasons for gladness, what could be foremost of this one, that the mind can seize both the instant and the memory! But here’s the kingdom we call remembrance with its thousand iron doors through which I pass so easily, switching on the old lights as I go— while the dead wind rises and the old rapture rewinds, the stiff waters once more begin to kick and flow. Mary Oliver, from WINTER AT HERRING COVE
The Mojave and Latinx queer poet Natalie Diaz writes in her introduction to the new compilation of Mary Oliver’s work: "Little alleluias, she called her writings. Not meant to define but to praise, to rejoice in the maker and what has been made, to dare be heard as a whisper or a shout in this immense world. Oliver’s call to make a new and serious response resounds with June Jordan’s belief that, Poetry means taking control of the / language of your life. In Oliver’s poems, seeing is also feeling and both become an overwhelm for which language is a slight anodyne or ease.”
I love her inclusion of June Jordan’s line about poetry infusing the daily words of your life. It is true. It is freeing. It makes sure you are never bored or alone, since it runs through your mind at all times, magicfying the most mundane of days or most sorrowful. I am so desperately sorry for those who don’t feel anything with poetry or poetic writing. I see them in my mind staring at the big and small screens of their life barely blinking or breathing, certainly not living a rich, full, varied life. I read Ada Limón’s new compilation Startlement and Little Alleluias at the same time, feeling the holiness of this moment, that I am alive when these two were published.
Limón writes in an article for Alta, “I write to remember because not only do I want to hold on to this life, to everything I love, but I want to behold it, wholly. Writing is a way of saying, Yes, I am here, but also we are here together, all of us, how rare, how miraculous, how awful, how utterly strange.” Beholding is a prayer, and alleluias are praise, and while there are such differences in experience, age, setting, and tone, these two books show the glory and mystery and harshness of being alive. It is asked in times of suffering, how do we sing, how do we smile, how do we go on? The two poets begin to answer that question, and they do it over and over again.
The first works I resonated with in both books were Mary Oliver’s FLARE, from 2000 and Ada Limón’s A LITTLE DISTANTLY, AS ONE SHOULD, from 2005. I feel the closeness of that separation, just 5 years, and they both speak to me so clearly. I hope they forgive me, but I will shorten their names to Ada and Mary O for the rest of the review. Ada’s tone in this book of poems, which I hadn’t read before, is the frank, open, modern autobiographical style that may or may not be true to her life but is very engaging and accessible. Storytelling in its perfection. She is writing about how storytelling can be more powerful at times than the events that happened, all the details you can put in that may not have occurred to you as it was happening and her exuberance can shine through. She writes:
My friend, all the time, says I'm so excited,
and when I ask her, for what, she just shrugs
and says, Aren't you? I suppose so. Yes.
It’s the happiness for no reason, just because. The joy that accompanies the most quiet of things. I know so many people, including me, struggle with this, that fear, anxiety, depression, worry, stress mutes all those things out, but I have learned it is a practice, and with practice becomes easier. Mary O writes in FLARE, which opens with acknowledging the despicable abuse she suffered from her parents, but also singing that she won’t carry the “iron thing they carried:”
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also, like the diligent leaves. A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life. Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away. Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance. In the glare of your mind, be modest. And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.
Another poem that compares is THE ECHO SOUNDER BY by Ada and WORK by Mary O, where they are both struggling with what to believe in when the world can be so dark. Both poems have a declaration of a belief in god, Ada here:
She understands now that bodies can swing
from trees and whole families can be
locked up, that people die the way fish do
starving sometimes, gutted and tortured
by children who think they are being
scientific and responsible. She thinks God
must know this and therefore he is ugly.
She decides God is no good, but he must exist,
he must exist so she can hold him accountable.
She decides this and then forgets.
Mary O here:
Everyday—I have work to do: I feel my body rising through the water not much more than a leaf; and I feel like the child, crazed by beauty or filled to bursting with woe; and I am the snail in the universe of the leaves trudging upward; and I am the pale lily who believes in God, though she has no word for it…
Ada is exploring the idea of an echo sounder, used in oceanography exploration, and the correlation with how an echocardiogram is an exploration of the chambers of the heart, of which we have 4, left and right atrium, left and right ventricles, chambers meaning cavities, empty areas, spaces that contain our blood in a rhythm, passed in from the body through one half, then to the lungs, back to the other side of the heart, and then to the body again. Blood is like water, water that circulates the earth through the water cycle, clouds, ground, rivers, creeks, lakes, oceans.
Mary O writes,
This is the habit of the rock in the river, over which the water pours all night and all day. But the nature of man is not the nature of silence. Words are the thunders of the mind. Words are the refinement of the flesh. Words are the responses to the thousand curvaceous moments— we just manage it— sweet and electric, words flow from the brain and out the gate of the mouth.
I will sing for the veil that never lifts. I will sing for the veil that begins, once in a lifetime, maybe, to lift. I will sing for the rent in the veil. I will sing for what is in front of the veil, the floating light. I will sing for what is behind the veil—light, light, and more light.
Ada writes about learning a beautiful word Philadelphia and using that as a code or short hand for the feeling that Mary O writes about, illumination and its song:
She is convinced that she can talk
to God and she asks him a question.
She does not get an answer, so
she makes one up. She believes the answer is:
everything stops, the food is in the mouth, .
but the mouth is not there,
the water flows, but there is no creek.
…
like the way everything can
touch you at once
…
the feeling when all those things get to you
and you want to cry or pray and because
you’re no good at either, you
tell everyone to leave you alone so you
can go on feeling the world climbing around
in your body like you were just as much
a part of it as it was of you, maybe, she thought,
she could call that feeling Philadelphia.
Both ways, either way, it is song that we are so fortunate to be alive to read right now, and if we were alive in 2000 and 2005, to be alive when written.
There are so many connections through time and space. One of my favorite lines from Ada is from From SHARKS IN THE RIVERS title poem from 2010:
I cannot tell anymore when a door opens or closes,
I can only hear the frame saying, Walk through.
Mary O’s door reference, also from FLARE,
But the poem wants to flower, like a flower. It knows that much. It wants to open itself, like the doorof a little temple, so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed, and less yourself than part of everything.
Or a leaf simultaneously falling from a tree and travelling the cosmos, ways the poets see the object differently, but inhabit the same corner of my mind:
and will you find yourself finally wanting to forget all enclosures, including the enclosure of yourself, o lonelyleaf, and will you dash finally, frantically, to the windows and haul them open and lean out to the dark, silvered sky, to everything that is beyond capture, shouting I’m here, I’m here! Now, now, now, now, now. From Mary O’s THE BOOK OF TIME
From Ada’s IN PRAISE OF MYSTERY: A POEM FOR EUROPA, written for the space flight where my name was inscribed:
there are mysteries below our sky:
the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.
We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.
And it is not darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,
each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
Ada uses the word mountain 17 times, and Mary O only 6 but there is a connection from looking at the microcosm to the macrocosm, which is one of my favorite exercises.
Mary O, speaking of a small rock that was once a mountain in STONES, so that the stone holds the image of a grand place of worship, as well as the future potential of natural cathedrals like the Maroon Bells:
The white stones were mountains, then they went traveling. The pink stones also were part of a mountain before the glacier’s tongue gathered them up. Now they lie resting under the waves…Each one is a tiny church, locked up tight.
Ada writing in LET LOOSE (my favorite new Ada poem!!!) about becoming part of a mountain in a sacred way, intangible and protected, like the stones at the bottom of the ocean.
...watch each part
of me released and become something entirely
acrobatic and weightless, not flying, but not falling
just entirely in love with the air, oh look at how
gorgeous I am! Falling away from myself, no body
at all, just the mountain, just the breath
of the mountain, no not even the breath
of the mountain, nothing that can be hurt, or taken,
nothing that can be broken into or scarred,
something invisible and just how I imagined.
or in the Ada’s GEOGRAPHY OF MOUNTAINS, about going home to her hometown and childhood home, mountains and woman as the source of everything:
After all these years, I am waking up.
After all these years, I’ve come home, to the valley,
And now I know well the mountains that looks
Like a woman sleeping. I can point at her curves.
I know also that all mountains
Are women sleeping, dissolving imperceptibly,
Stretched out at last, alone, at rest,
The source of everything.
Back to Mary O in a prose section where she is celebrating staying in one place to learn it in quiet, receptive moments, so actually the absence of a mountain:
My story contains neither a mountain, nor a canyon, nor a blizzard, nor hail, nor spike of wind striking the earth and lifting whatever is in its path. I think the rare and wonderful awareness I felt would not have arrived in any such busy hour…Yet I would hazard this guess, that it is more likely to happen to someone attentively entering the quiet moment, when the sun-soaked world is gliding on under the blessings of blue sky, and the wind god is asleep. Then, if ever, we may peek under the veil of all appearances and partialities. 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.
Ada coins a term, “breaknecking,” about a speeding truck, and Mary O creates a term, “mindroaming,” which at first seem unrelated, a truck and a river, but it shimmers in my mind as compatible, there is daydreaming in a slow, lazy fashion but if you need the mystery and delight, it also can come, sometimes must come at a breakneck speed to fight the darknesses of the world:
And then, thinking of those bodies of water, I go mindroaming. I could name a hundred events, hours, creatures, that have filled me with delight, and fructifying praise. Experience, experience!-with the rain, and the trees, and all their kindred- has brought me a comfort and a modesty and a devotion to inclusiveness that I would not give up for all the gold in all the mountains of the world. This I knew, as I grew from simple delight toward thought and into conviction: such beauty as the earth offers must hold great meaning.
There are dozens more, and I hope that if anyone else out there reads both, does a deep reading exercise and finds the threads that weave and bind and separate both poets, my sheroes, who illuminate the way in these times.
August 24, 2025
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.
When I saw a new Mary Oliver collection I was delighted. Unfortunately, this was not what I was hoping for. I loved the idea of her poetry and prose from the years into one collection. However, this felt disjointed and during the essays part especially it dragged.
Mary Oliver's writing is fantastic, but I don't think this highlighted the best of her writing in a cohesive way. Some themes I felt through the first half of the book were love, grief, water, amazement. Once it came to the essays, the first few being lovely, then were added some essays about Emerson and Hawthorne that felt long and not in relation to the rest of the collection. I also think the idea of essays and poetry would have flowed better if they weren't separated by collection but alternated between some poems long and short, and essays.
Still, Mary Oliver's writing was enjoyable, at the very least.
When I saw a new Mary Oliver collection I was delighted. Unfortunately, this was not what I was hoping for. I loved the idea of her poetry and prose from the years into one collection. However, this felt disjointed and during the essays part especially it dragged.
Mary Oliver's writing is fantastic, but I don't think this highlighted the best of her writing in a cohesive way. Some themes I felt through the first half of the book were love, grief, water, amazement. Once it came to the essays, the first few being lovely, then were added some essays about Emerson and Hawthorne that felt long and not in relation to the rest of the collection. I also think the idea of essays and poetry would have flowed better if they weren't separated by collection but alternated between some poems long and short, and essays.
Still, Mary Oliver's writing was enjoyable, at the very least.
September 17, 2025
Mary Oliver is a treasure and I am beyond grateful to have received a copy of #LittleAlleluias to read and review (in conjunction with the book's release on 9.9.2025). Thank you to #GrandCentralPublishing and to #NetGalley for this opportunity. Reading her poetry and essays is a balm, a warm, enveloping hug, and this is a time in our world when I (and many) could really use one.
We lost this legend in 2019 and it means so much to have new collection(s) released -- keeping her talents alive and current, so that many old and new fans/readers may experience the joy and vitality brought forth in her writing. I hope that more curated collections, such as this one, will follow in the future.
My FIVE STAR review appears to be in great company and I can assure that any lovers of nature, joy, dogs, love, and ESPECIALLY Mary Oliver will treasure this collection. It consists of three complete works by the writer: #TheLeafAndTheCloud (her book length poem), #WhatDoWeKnow (2002), and essays from #LongLife (2004) along with a gorgeous introduction by poet Natalie Diaz and an informative Acknowledgements section as well.
Mary Oliver does not shrink back from topics that cause discomfort (death, loss, grief) but spins these shared experiences into moments of tremendous gratitude and humility. It is about the pricelessness of being fully alive and present in the world -- whatever is going on. Her language feels simple, her use of repetition is powerful and her words deliver sensory experiences, imagery, that makes an immediate impression and does not fade. I found myself looking up birds she named, contemplating the meaning of solitude as she describes it, and so many other seemingly minor details that repeat as common themes in her work and conjure, rather than loneliness, a feeling of being connected to everything and everyone.
Oliver meets life head on -- eye to eye, toe-to-toe -- and opens her heart and mind and soul. She metabolizes these moments and creates poetry and prose that are accessible and unexpected -- like receiving a gift from a friend who knows exactly what you need.
Probably my favorite quote within the collection was this: "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." That is Mary Oliver. That is her superpower.
I cannot provide a better definition or description of what Mary Oliver brings to her work and to her readers than what is quoted above. Thank you again for this beautiful opportunity and for everyone who needs an empowering collection and feeling of connection - here it is.
We lost this legend in 2019 and it means so much to have new collection(s) released -- keeping her talents alive and current, so that many old and new fans/readers may experience the joy and vitality brought forth in her writing. I hope that more curated collections, such as this one, will follow in the future.
My FIVE STAR review appears to be in great company and I can assure that any lovers of nature, joy, dogs, love, and ESPECIALLY Mary Oliver will treasure this collection. It consists of three complete works by the writer: #TheLeafAndTheCloud (her book length poem), #WhatDoWeKnow (2002), and essays from #LongLife (2004) along with a gorgeous introduction by poet Natalie Diaz and an informative Acknowledgements section as well.
Mary Oliver does not shrink back from topics that cause discomfort (death, loss, grief) but spins these shared experiences into moments of tremendous gratitude and humility. It is about the pricelessness of being fully alive and present in the world -- whatever is going on. Her language feels simple, her use of repetition is powerful and her words deliver sensory experiences, imagery, that makes an immediate impression and does not fade. I found myself looking up birds she named, contemplating the meaning of solitude as she describes it, and so many other seemingly minor details that repeat as common themes in her work and conjure, rather than loneliness, a feeling of being connected to everything and everyone.
Oliver meets life head on -- eye to eye, toe-to-toe -- and opens her heart and mind and soul. She metabolizes these moments and creates poetry and prose that are accessible and unexpected -- like receiving a gift from a friend who knows exactly what you need.
Probably my favorite quote within the collection was this: "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." That is Mary Oliver. That is her superpower.
I cannot provide a better definition or description of what Mary Oliver brings to her work and to her readers than what is quoted above. Thank you again for this beautiful opportunity and for everyone who needs an empowering collection and feeling of connection - here it is.
August 6, 2025
Thanks to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for this e-ARC! I want to say up front that I’m not a frequent reader of poetry, and I requested this to broaden my horizons. So, I’m not exactly sure how to review this.
However, as a poetry neophyte, I think Mary Oliver is my kind of poet. The “Who’s It For” summary on The StoryGraph suggests this book is for “readers who seek quiet, reverent communion with nature and the self, who find solace in language that praises rather than explains, and who are willing to linger in gratitude for fleeting moments of beauty.” Doesn’t that sound nice? I think it does.
This was challenging to read in the way that I felt like I might be reading another language, outside my comfort zone. I enjoyed picking it up right before bed as a way to wind down. Like any reading experience, there were parts that I strongly connected with, and other parts where I felt like I could glaze over. As a fellow New England lover (Is there a word for that? “New Anglophile”…?), I couldn’t get enough of her transporting descriptions of the Cape, no matter the season. Some of my favorites are “The Hummingbird,” “Wind,” “You Are Standing at the Edge of the Woods,” “Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me,” “A Settlement,” “The Loon,” and “By the Wild-Haired Corn.”
I knew nothing about Mary Oliver before reading this, apart from the fact that she was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (gleaned from the cover) and that she sadly passed away in 2019. Upon further research, I learned that we have a lot in common – she was a fellow native of the Buckeye State and studied at Ohio State (my alma mater). This book has certainly done its job – for me, at least. I still don’t know how to properly review poetry, but I consider my horizons to be broadened.
However, as a poetry neophyte, I think Mary Oliver is my kind of poet. The “Who’s It For” summary on The StoryGraph suggests this book is for “readers who seek quiet, reverent communion with nature and the self, who find solace in language that praises rather than explains, and who are willing to linger in gratitude for fleeting moments of beauty.” Doesn’t that sound nice? I think it does.
This was challenging to read in the way that I felt like I might be reading another language, outside my comfort zone. I enjoyed picking it up right before bed as a way to wind down. Like any reading experience, there were parts that I strongly connected with, and other parts where I felt like I could glaze over. As a fellow New England lover (Is there a word for that? “New Anglophile”…?), I couldn’t get enough of her transporting descriptions of the Cape, no matter the season. Some of my favorites are “The Hummingbird,” “Wind,” “You Are Standing at the Edge of the Woods,” “Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me,” “A Settlement,” “The Loon,” and “By the Wild-Haired Corn.”
I knew nothing about Mary Oliver before reading this, apart from the fact that she was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (gleaned from the cover) and that she sadly passed away in 2019. Upon further research, I learned that we have a lot in common – she was a fellow native of the Buckeye State and studied at Ohio State (my alma mater). This book has certainly done its job – for me, at least. I still don’t know how to properly review poetry, but I consider my horizons to be broadened.
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