This is strong and beautiful, thank you. I was just reading from her book, Little Alleluiahs, before opening this article. You remind me of something Orson Scott Card wrote in his book, Speaker for the Dead. Paraphrasing, a character says, when we sanitize our recitation of the life of someone who just died, it’s as if we kill them again. We smooth over the rough, hard places, to make them easier to digest than they were in real life. We remove the secret of how they became the complex, richly textured person who enhanced our lives. Hagiographies almost always fail because they are almost always two dimensional. Thanks for reminding us to seek out everything that made her special.
Here is the correct, unparaphrased, quotation from Speaker for the Dead: “I grew dissatisfied with the way that we use our funerals to revise the life of the dead, to give the dead a story so different from their actual life that, in effect, we kill them all over again. No, that is too strong. Let me just say that we erase them, we edit them, we make them into a person much easier to live with than the person who actually lived.”
I recently read Devotions, and it’s the only full book of Mary Oliver poems I’ve read. I wonder if people misinterpret her poems simply because they have never seen her more viral works in the context of her larger full body of work? It’s kind of a problem with the reading of all poetry nowadays — more people reading single poems in isolation, devoid of the larger container that a poetry book provides.
In any case, thanks for sharing your experience and these poems.
Thank you Tara. And yes, that is my guess. It’s like reading only a passage of a book and not the whole book. Like never learning that Anna Karenina ever had a negative experience with a train.
Thank you so much for this. I did not know these poems. That you tell of going beneath the familiar, sunny surface of a park for the interview, is a fit metaphoric framing for your going beneath the sunny popular image of Oliver.
Thank you for your honesty, integrity and revealing how small some people are. This interview pissed me off. You done good, Brennan. Keep on truck in’!
Some folks will never get it no matter how highly regarded they may think they are.
Thanks for this glimpse into Mary’s depths. I had not known these 3 poems—so heart wrenching. One of my favorite poems of hers is Of the Empire—such a perfect depiction of our times. And, of course, we need her more than ever now to remind us to PAY ATTENTION.
Oh my goodness, thank you for this. What infuriates you about peoples' perceptions of Mary and her work infuriates me too,--and not just your average person on social media, even a very well known poet, whom I also know from Provincetown, who would and should know better, announces in the new trailer to a documentary, Mary Oliver, Saved by the Beauty of the World, "...that was one of my frustrations with Mary's poems, she was just presenting herself in the light...what is the storm?"...ugh. I believe you have perfectly illustrated the storm in the dark hauntings of these wrenching poems. She was also ferocious about love...one of my favorite prose poems, West Wind 2, was the first I committed to memory.
Thank you so much Myra! And yes, anyone who could say that about Mary has not read her! As I say in this essay, she wrote whole books of poems! They are available at libraries and for purchase, and people should read them. Dream Work and American Primitive won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer, respectively, and for good reason. It’s crazy how people can get flattened so much.
Also, who was that guy??? I wonder if his quote was taken out of context, asking “where was the storm,” or if he hadn’t read her work, or if he was just oblivious to the blatant storm narratives of abuse and survival, political awareness, regret, etc., that one finds in so much of her work. If you only know “yoga class Mary,” that’s fine, but then why are you talking about her in public?
I hesitate to name him here, I could privately tell you, but he's a prolific and very successful memoirist and poet who teaches at the Fine Arts Work Center, the very place Mary Oliver was a founding member, as I'm sure you know...impossible that he doesn't read or know her work, inside and out. It just shocked me to hear that tumble from his lips...and I can't imagine how that statement could be taken out of context. And if I were home I'd see the film at the Film Festival next month and report back to you.
Oh, this makes me cringe, the whole interview, the questions, the editing. I can imagine your bewilderment and unease. Just so unfortunate. It's depressing.
Thank you for those 3 poems. A naked poet, so important.
And thank You for your honesty and excellent writing. 💫
Oh they were very nice, but I’m not sure I handled the interview too well. I am too vulnerable for media much of the time, I think. Thank you for reading.
Thank you for this essay. (Sorry for editing this so many times, I had to flip through her poems to find the phrases that were in my head.) After I read The Journey, the lines “”Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you didn’t stop.” stayed with me. I began seeing Mary Oliver as this poet who was desperately trying to save themself from becoming “the red song in the night” as you said. They felt enough guilt and shame to deflect, to use “you” when they meant “I”. They felt ashamed that saving themself was all they could do. Yet they knew that they had to put all of their attention every day for the rest of their lives on the frogs shouting their satisfaction and the grasshopper eating sugar out of their hand just to save themselves. To me this is why they have so many poems. In the end, each poet is speaking to themself. Mary Oliver is warning themself to be grateful for the gift, to not be pathetically cautious when headlong might save their life. When I read Devotion while I was burning out of my career, having panic attacks every week, I could see what a deliberate, protective habit it was to turn your attention up to the world around you like this.
I love both ‘Rage’ and ‘Wild Geese’ - and particularly the way they are placed together. (The latter was read out to me by the counsellors on the day I left addiction rehab - where I’d started dealing with the aftermath of a situation related to that in the former.)
thank you for sharing these, and your experience, which sounds incredibly frustrating. i admit i’m not really that familiar with her poems- in fact, i’ve avoided reading them, since the people who quote them the loudest in my experience were not people i would strive to emulate. i know that’s pretty shallow of me. reading your words on her work, in this and other things you’ve published, has been encouraging me to take another look.
Thanks Marie. I’d recommend Dream Work and American Primitive as starting places. She certainly won’t be for everyone, but she was a complex person who overcame a lot of darkness and was a wonderful teacher who bears no resemblance to the public image put forth by so many, including her publisher now that she is no longer with us, with their zombie Facebook page of her.
Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets. Have learned so much from her. "Devotions" still on my nightstand by my bed.
"Wild And Precious" taught me even more about Mary Oliver. I didn't know you are on it until listening to it. The whole experience was enlightening, educational. The poems you offered and you spoke about them brought a different light to her poetry. I appreciate that.
Before that, one of her poems has stuck with me for years, "Franz Marc's Blue Horses". It still speaks to me. Her writing has depth.
I appreciate when you write about Mary Oliver and her poetry because I was exposed to negative opinions about her poetry before I ever got to read one.
This is strong and beautiful, thank you. I was just reading from her book, Little Alleluiahs, before opening this article. You remind me of something Orson Scott Card wrote in his book, Speaker for the Dead. Paraphrasing, a character says, when we sanitize our recitation of the life of someone who just died, it’s as if we kill them again. We smooth over the rough, hard places, to make them easier to digest than they were in real life. We remove the secret of how they became the complex, richly textured person who enhanced our lives. Hagiographies almost always fail because they are almost always two dimensional. Thanks for reminding us to seek out everything that made her special.
I love this. Thank you John.
Here is the correct, unparaphrased, quotation from Speaker for the Dead: “I grew dissatisfied with the way that we use our funerals to revise the life of the dead, to give the dead a story so different from their actual life that, in effect, we kill them all over again. No, that is too strong. Let me just say that we erase them, we edit them, we make them into a person much easier to live with than the person who actually lived.”
I recently read Devotions, and it’s the only full book of Mary Oliver poems I’ve read. I wonder if people misinterpret her poems simply because they have never seen her more viral works in the context of her larger full body of work? It’s kind of a problem with the reading of all poetry nowadays — more people reading single poems in isolation, devoid of the larger container that a poetry book provides.
In any case, thanks for sharing your experience and these poems.
Thank you Tara. And yes, that is my guess. It’s like reading only a passage of a book and not the whole book. Like never learning that Anna Karenina ever had a negative experience with a train.
Thank you so much for this. I did not know these poems. That you tell of going beneath the familiar, sunny surface of a park for the interview, is a fit metaphoric framing for your going beneath the sunny popular image of Oliver.
Thank you for your honesty, integrity and revealing how small some people are. This interview pissed me off. You done good, Brennan. Keep on truck in’!
Some folks will never get it no matter how highly regarded they may think they are.
Thanks for this glimpse into Mary’s depths. I had not known these 3 poems—so heart wrenching. One of my favorite poems of hers is Of the Empire—such a perfect depiction of our times. And, of course, we need her more than ever now to remind us to PAY ATTENTION.
Of The Empire is a great one. Thank you for reading!
Oh my goodness, thank you for this. What infuriates you about peoples' perceptions of Mary and her work infuriates me too,--and not just your average person on social media, even a very well known poet, whom I also know from Provincetown, who would and should know better, announces in the new trailer to a documentary, Mary Oliver, Saved by the Beauty of the World, "...that was one of my frustrations with Mary's poems, she was just presenting herself in the light...what is the storm?"...ugh. I believe you have perfectly illustrated the storm in the dark hauntings of these wrenching poems. She was also ferocious about love...one of my favorite prose poems, West Wind 2, was the first I committed to memory.
Thank you so much Myra! And yes, anyone who could say that about Mary has not read her! As I say in this essay, she wrote whole books of poems! They are available at libraries and for purchase, and people should read them. Dream Work and American Primitive won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer, respectively, and for good reason. It’s crazy how people can get flattened so much.
Also, who was that guy??? I wonder if his quote was taken out of context, asking “where was the storm,” or if he hadn’t read her work, or if he was just oblivious to the blatant storm narratives of abuse and survival, political awareness, regret, etc., that one finds in so much of her work. If you only know “yoga class Mary,” that’s fine, but then why are you talking about her in public?
I hesitate to name him here, I could privately tell you, but he's a prolific and very successful memoirist and poet who teaches at the Fine Arts Work Center, the very place Mary Oliver was a founding member, as I'm sure you know...impossible that he doesn't read or know her work, inside and out. It just shocked me to hear that tumble from his lips...and I can't imagine how that statement could be taken out of context. And if I were home I'd see the film at the Film Festival next month and report back to you.
Maybe it was taken out of context.
one would absolutely hope so, perhaps it was the prelude to the "storm" in the film.
That would be my guess, I suppose we shall see!
Oh, this makes me cringe, the whole interview, the questions, the editing. I can imagine your bewilderment and unease. Just so unfortunate. It's depressing.
Thank you for those 3 poems. A naked poet, so important.
And thank You for your honesty and excellent writing. 💫
Oh they were very nice, but I’m not sure I handled the interview too well. I am too vulnerable for media much of the time, I think. Thank you for reading.
In the context of the poem Rage, "the red song in the night" sent shivers up my spine. Thanks for sharing that poem.
Thank you David. I’m an evangelist for the complete early works of Mary Oliver as opposed to just the highlights!
Thank you for this essay. (Sorry for editing this so many times, I had to flip through her poems to find the phrases that were in my head.) After I read The Journey, the lines “”Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you didn’t stop.” stayed with me. I began seeing Mary Oliver as this poet who was desperately trying to save themself from becoming “the red song in the night” as you said. They felt enough guilt and shame to deflect, to use “you” when they meant “I”. They felt ashamed that saving themself was all they could do. Yet they knew that they had to put all of their attention every day for the rest of their lives on the frogs shouting their satisfaction and the grasshopper eating sugar out of their hand just to save themselves. To me this is why they have so many poems. In the end, each poet is speaking to themself. Mary Oliver is warning themself to be grateful for the gift, to not be pathetically cautious when headlong might save their life. When I read Devotion while I was burning out of my career, having panic attacks every week, I could see what a deliberate, protective habit it was to turn your attention up to the world around you like this.
I love both ‘Rage’ and ‘Wild Geese’ - and particularly the way they are placed together. (The latter was read out to me by the counsellors on the day I left addiction rehab - where I’d started dealing with the aftermath of a situation related to that in the former.)
It’s so powerful in that context.
This essay was successful in convincing me to give Mary Oliver a deeper look. Thank you for sharing her work with such devotion.
thank you erin!
So brilliant. Thank you!
thank you for sharing these, and your experience, which sounds incredibly frustrating. i admit i’m not really that familiar with her poems- in fact, i’ve avoided reading them, since the people who quote them the loudest in my experience were not people i would strive to emulate. i know that’s pretty shallow of me. reading your words on her work, in this and other things you’ve published, has been encouraging me to take another look.
Thanks Marie. I’d recommend Dream Work and American Primitive as starting places. She certainly won’t be for everyone, but she was a complex person who overcame a lot of darkness and was a wonderful teacher who bears no resemblance to the public image put forth by so many, including her publisher now that she is no longer with us, with their zombie Facebook page of her.
Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets. Have learned so much from her. "Devotions" still on my nightstand by my bed.
"Wild And Precious" taught me even more about Mary Oliver. I didn't know you are on it until listening to it. The whole experience was enlightening, educational. The poems you offered and you spoke about them brought a different light to her poetry. I appreciate that.
Before that, one of her poems has stuck with me for years, "Franz Marc's Blue Horses". It still speaks to me. Her writing has depth.
I’m so glad you liked the audiobook
I appreciate when you write about Mary Oliver and her poetry because I was exposed to negative opinions about her poetry before I ever got to read one.
That is really too bad. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed reading about her, she was a remarkable and brave person.