Ratings25
Average rating4.4
A New York Times Bestseller, chosen as Oprah's "Books That Help Me Through" for Oprah's Book Club “No matter where one starts reading, Devotions offers much to love, from Oliver's exuberant dog poems to selections from the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Primitive, and Dream Work, one of her exceptional collections. Perhaps more important, the luminous writing provides respite from our crazy world and demonstrates how mindfulness can define and transform a life, moment by moment, poem by poem.” —The Washington Post “It’s as if the poet herself has sidled beside the reader and pointed us to the poems she considers most worthy of deep consideration.” —Chicago Tribune Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver presents a personal selection of her best work in this definitive collection spanning more than five decades of her esteemed literary career. Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Identified as "far and away, this country's best selling poet" by Dwight Garner, she now returns with a stunning and definitive collection of her writing from the last fifty years. Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver's work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity, published in 2015. This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world.
Reviews with the most likes.
I love some of her poems intensely. This collection, put together by Oliver...is not good. It took me two years to finish it, and I adore poetry. So many poems about black snakes, that often sounded the same. Many poems about how she either deeply understood the First Nations people in a New Way, not like other people, or, in one offense passage, wanted to “paint [her] skin red” and join them. This was a struggle to finish. It felt pretentious and sometimes juvenile.
Mary Oliver is undoubtedly a genius. However this book focuses a lot of time on her more recent works, which just don't shine quite like her older poems do
Going to come back to this for insomnia nights, so not in a hurry to finish it!
Mary Oliver is my favorite poet and this collection of poems from her different works is a delight that I will revisit again and again.
I would like to share one of the dog-eared poems in my copy (that I dog-eared poems in this book at all says something, because I am one of those peculiar sorts who like to keep books in pristine condition). It is titled, “Invitation.”
“Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude -
believe us, they say, it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in this broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.”