4thace reviewed Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver
Review of 'Why I Wake Early' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
For me to approach a book of poems by Mary Oliver is first of all to give up inhabiting the same space she does. Hers is so charged up with nature in a way I have never envisioned even including when I lived in much more rural areas than now. The environment I perceive is deficient in the kind of charismatic animals and plants that play such a big role in her work. This is not to say that nature is itself the subject she wants to talk about, but often sets the occasion that leads to the poem. In fact the one poem I chose to grab a copy of to be able to read in the future, "The Soul at Last," focuses on the natural world only obliquely, in a simile as it begins:
The Lord's terrifying kindness has come to me.
It was only a small silvery …
For me to approach a book of poems by Mary Oliver is first of all to give up inhabiting the same space she does. Hers is so charged up with nature in a way I have never envisioned even including when I lived in much more rural areas than now. The environment I perceive is deficient in the kind of charismatic animals and plants that play such a big role in her work. This is not to say that nature is itself the subject she wants to talk about, but often sets the occasion that leads to the poem. In fact the one poem I chose to grab a copy of to be able to read in the future, "The Soul at Last," focuses on the natural world only obliquely, in a simile as it begins:
The Lord's terrifying kindness has come to me.
It was only a small silvery thing--say a piece of silver cloth, or a thousand spider webs woven together, or a small handful of aspen leaves, with their silver backs shimmering.
She has mastered the art of vivid specificity in each image even when she is using it to suggest something else entirely, which I really admire. The way she talks about these things strikes me as coming from the West, not part of the Eastern poetic tradition, yet it can still leave a Western reader wondering what it all about ultimately. For the poet holds something back, expecting the reader to contribute something when searching for the meaning contained in each poem, which might be a thing which does not lie on the surface.