Blue Iris: Poems and Essays

by Mary Oliver

For poet Mary Oliver, nature is full of mystery and miracle. From the excitation of birds in the sky to the flowers and plants that are "the simple garments" of the earth, the natural world is her text of both the earth's changes and its permanence.

In Blue Iris, Mary Oliver collects ten new poems, two dozen of her poems written over the last two decades, and two previously unpublished essays on the beauty and wonder of plants. The poet considers roses, of course, as well as poppies and peonies; lilies and morning glories; the thick-bodied black oak and the fragrant white pine; the tall sunflower and the slender bean.

James Dickey has said of her, "Far beneath the surface-flash of linguistic effect, Mary Oliver works her quiet and mysterious spell. It is a true spell, unlike any other poet's, the enchantment of the true maker." In Blue Iris, she has captured with breathtaking clarity the true enchantment and mysterious spell of flowers and plants of all sorts and their magnetic hold on us.

Genres: Poetry, Nature, Essays, Nonfiction, Queer, Adult, LGBT

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Mary Jane Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[L]

This is my favourite poem in the collection, not because it's the most exceptional poem, but because it's the poem that wound itself most firmly round my heart, and reminded me of the final days I spent with my grandmother, when she knew and I knew that she was dying, but she chose not to speak of it, but did as she had always done—silently admired the roses:

Roses

The look on her face in a dream
Stayed with me all day
Like a promise I had failed.

Not that I had made any—
Not that I could remember—
But she was looking into the north

Where nothing lives but white clouds
Of crying birds, like bits of snow.
And the grass on which she was standing,

And the roses thick on the fences
Were soft and bright, able to renew themselves
As a woman, finally, cannot do.

[Kimber]

Exquisitely beautiful. Of flowers that visualized this way rival Georgia O'Keefe. Of merging consciousness. I don't think I could express Oneness any other way than by a Mary Oliver poem.

[Ana]

If Mary Oliver was a character...😁👆🏼
All these poems are about flowers, woods, gardening, birds and nature in general

If i had another life
I want to spend it all on some unstinting happiness.
I would be a fox, or a tree
full of waving branches.
I wouldn't mind being a rose
in a field full of roses.
Fear has not yet ocurred to them, nor ambition.
Reason they have not yet thought of.
Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what.
Or any other foolish question.

[Teresa]

I checked out every Mary Oliver book in the library. I still want more.

[oumaima]

hello, old friend. i read this and now i want to hold it all quietly in my soul. then i will go give my yellow roses fresh water. there is a gentle magic to mary oliver's words, a kindness i am yet to find elsewhere.

[naviya]

-tender, anti-capitalist ~vibes~
-good for ur gratuitous lesbian plant tattoos
-i read it and then immediately wanted to read it again but it is 3am and i must sleep
-it feels like a balm
-i want to sit in a field of flowers, early in the morning with tea and read it 1000x times

[helena ♡]

3.5☆
let me start off by saying that i don't like this poetry structure AT ALL, it feels very stiff and doesn't flow well to me. mary oliver still writes beautifully, though, i just don't think this was the collection for me.

pre-read: gonna read some essays to feel smarter and put my brain to work

[Sunny D]

A phenomenal collection, probably my favorite I've read of Mary Oliver's so far. Her adoration for and desire to learn from the natural world is infectious. I feel I'll return to these pages often. I read the poems aloud to my kitten, and he nibbled the corners of the book while I did. Probably because he liked the sentiment.

[Crystal]

I just read this book in one sitting on this delicious Friday evening as the sun sat outside the window. For me, this was an evening of pure bliss. This volume from Oliver's work compiles several of her poems and a few essays that focus on the beauty and wonder of the natural world particularly flowers, trees and plants. One of my all-time favorite poems “Peonies” is contained in this volume. You can read this poem at the Writer’s Almanac. Just click on this link:http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org...

A quote from Emerson opens this book:
“Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.”
As I read this book, I chuckled, I smiled and I pondered. In it there, is the science, the beauty, and the brutality of nature translated through the honest and spiritual mind of Oliver. She takes in the natural world with such a keen eye but writes about it with such depth and humanity; but it is not wearying depth but refreshment. Among my favorites in the volume.: “The Oak Tree at the Entrance to Blackwater Pond”; “Peonies”; “Lilies”; “White Flowers” ( I do believe I’d like this poem read at my funeral); and last, “How Would You Live Then?”
One very good line at the end of a section called “Upstream” says“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
This has my highest recommendation for when you need a deep, deep breath of relaxation and release.

[Sydney]

"Attention is the beginning of devotion." :')

Perfect little poetry book for spring!

[kate✰]

my sister gifted me a thoughtfully annotated copy of this book for my 25th birthday, and i only just got around to reading it. i sat in the sunshine on my patio, straining to hear the birds and the rustling of the trees over the sounds of cars and bikes, which felt apt. mary oliver, as always, stuns.

so this is the world.
I’m not in it.
It is beautiful.
–excerpt from October, 1992.

[Alithea]

“so this is the world.
I’m not in it.
It is beautiful.”

[shensis]

”Of course nothing stops the cold, black, curved blade from hooking forward— of course loss is the great lesson. But also I say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness (...)”

(finished this outside, on a sunfilled porchstep, graced with birdsong. i think miss oliver would have approved)

[Salem ☥]

“Last night in the fields I lay down in the darkness to think about death, but instead I fell asleep, as if in a vast and sloping room filled with those white flowers that open all summer, sticky and untidy, in the warm fields. When I woke the morning light was just slipping in front of the stars, and I was covered with blossoms. I don’t know how it happened—I don’t know if my body went diving down under the sugary vines in some sleep-sharpened affinity with the depths, or whether that green energy rose like a wave and curled over me, claiming me in its husky arms. I pushed them away, but I didn’t rise. Never in my life had I felt so plush, or so slippery, or so resplendently empty. Never in my life had I felt myself so near that porous line where my own body was done with and the roots and the stems and the flowers began.”

[Regine]

Gently observant. The touch of her poetry is a balm for the soul. “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

[ria]

attention is the beginning of devotion..............

[Samantha]

"Flowers, like people and birds, are travelers, and will leave a garden if they can."

[Florence Millo]

I have never been a poetry fan. Never could get it. But I was introduced recently to Mary Oliver and it is love at first poem. Can't wait to check out another book of her poetry from the library and savor my way through it!

[Himadri ॐ ˚꩜]

“I lie down in the fields of goldenrod, and everlasting.
Who could find me?
My thoughts simplify. I have not done a thousand things
or a hundred things but, perhaps, a few.
As for wondering about answers that are not available except
in books, though all my childhood I was sent there
to find them, I have learned
to leave all that behind

as in summer I take off my shoes and my socks,
my jacket, my hat, and go on
happier, through the fields. ”

Excerpt from the poem
Just Lying on the Grass at Blackwater

[Eliana]

“What if the brook slid downhill past your bedroom window so you could listen to its slow prayers as you fell asleep?” (57)

Ah, Oliver. Always a friendly reminder that the city/suburb life will not (cannot?) hold me in its opportunistic grasp forever. Find me in the slowness of the woods and the faith of the fields.

[Shelby Anne Taylor]

"Now that I'm free to be myself, who am I?"

Mary Oliver never fails to breathe life into me whilst completely taking my breath away at the same time. Rarely do I ever come across writing that resonates, moves, and stays with me the way hers does; this may be my new favorite collection.

[Bree Hill]

A Thousand Mornings continues to be my favorite Mary Oliver collection but this was good.

[Jillian]

I liked it,. But some I didn’t like how some of the poems were broken up, or made it harder to read and understand.

[ella]

mary oliver my beloved! forever my inspiration. “upstream” was my favorite.

[☀︎El In Oz☀︎]

3/5

Lovely as always Mary ❤️

[Josh]

The third Mary Oliver's book that I have read.
" Stunning, well-crafted poems and essays, poignant, optimistic, charming, appreciative"

This is my favourite Mary Oliver's work of art so far.

"Attention is the beginning of devotion" Mary Oliver

Loved it

[Courtney]

One of my favorite Mary Oliver collections: reading her poetry and seeing life through her eyes is a gift. I never get tired of her work.

[Chaimaa]

fave one :
"In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be. Wordsworth studied himself and found the subject astonishing. Actually what he studied was his relationship to the harmonies and also the discords of the natural world. That’s what created the excitement." ❤

[لَيلى]

نعِمت بقراءة هذا الكتاب حَول أصوات الطيور ورائحة الشجر العتيق وفي ربيعًا أعلن حضوره تمامًا وقد تخلّى عن بقايا الشتاء ورفض تقبُّل بدايات الصيف
The Ramble, May 2024
Who could find me?

[Georgie]

"Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling.
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever? "

- Peonies


"I have been thinking
about living
like the lilies
that blow in the fields.

They rise and fall
in the edge of the wind,
and have no shelter
from the tongues of the cattle,

and have no closets or cupboards,
and have no legs.
Still I would like to be
as wonderful

as the old idea.
But if I were a lily
I think I would wait all day
for the green face

of the hummingbird
to touch me.
What I mean is,
could I forget myself

even in those feathery fields?
When Van Gogh
preached to the poor
of course he wanted to save someone--

most of all himself.
He wasn't a lily,
and wandering through the bright fields
only gave him more ideas

it would take his life to solve.
I think I will always be lonely
in this world, where the cattle
graze like a black and white river--

where the vanishing lilies
melt, without protest, on their tongues--
where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,
just rises and floats away. "

- Lilies