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Blue Horses
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Poetry (2014)In this stunning collection of new poems, Mary Oliver returns to the imagery that has defined her life’s work, describing with wonder both the everyday and the unaffected beauty of nature.
Herons, sparrows, owls, and kingfishers flit across the page in meditations on love, artistry, and impermanence. Whether considering a bird’s nest, the seeming patience of oak trees, or the artworks of Franz Marc, Oliver reminds us of the transformative power of attention and how much can be contained within the smallest moments.
At its heart, Blue Horses asks what it means to truly belong to this world, to live in it attuned to all its changes. Humorous, gentle, and always honest, Oliver is a visionary of the natural world.
Herons, sparrows, owls, and kingfishers flit across the page in meditations on love, artistry, and impermanence. Whether considering a bird’s nest, the seeming patience of oak trees, or the artworks of Franz Marc, Oliver reminds us of the transformative power of attention and how much can be contained within the smallest moments.
At its heart, Blue Horses asks what it means to truly belong to this world, to live in it attuned to all its changes. Humorous, gentle, and always honest, Oliver is a visionary of the natural world.
79 pages, Hardcover
First published October 14, 2014
431 people are currently reading
16291 people want to read
About the author
Mary Oliver
106 books8,578 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 2,016 reviews
May 17, 2021
I! Don’t! Want! To! Be! Demure! Or! Respectable!
![Profile Image for s.penkevich [mental health hiatus].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1735525095i%2F6431467._UX200_CR0%2C11%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
February 18, 2025
‘In a poem / people want / something fancy,’ wrote poet Mary Oliver, ‘but even more / they want something / inexplicable / made plain.’ This audience analysis, made early in her 2014 collection, Blue Horses, encapsulates the sublimity of her own work: the inexplicable made plain. Not to say the writing is plain—quite the contrary as Oliver’s work is consistently teeming with gorgeous imagery and pristine turns of phrase—but the prose is also deceptively simple and blissfully accessible without sacrificing depth and heart. By Blue Horses, Oliver’s twelfth collection of poetry (she would release one more, Felicity, in 2015), she had perfected her style and while there is nothing surprising to be found in these pages these poems reach deep into the heart and any offering from Oliver is always a blessing. With tender looks at the human condition and the lessons we can learn from nature, the power of poetry itself, and musings on her eventual death from the vantage point of her waning years, Blue Horses offers the satisfaction one will have come to expect from Oliver’s ability to craft with beguiling simplicity and deliver like a soothing balm on the soul.
Crazy Little Love Song
I don’t want eventual,
I want soon.
It’s 5 a.m. It’s noon.
It’s dusk falling to dark.
I listen to music.
I eat up a few wild poems
while time creeps along
as though it’s got all day.
This is what I have.
The dull hangover of waiting,
the blush of my heart on the damp grass,
the flower-faced moon.
A gull broods on the shore
where a moment ago there were two.
Softly my right hand fondles my left hand
as though it were you.
The collection takes its name from a series of paintings by German artist Franz Marc (1880-1916), with the painting Turm der blauen Pferde (Tower of Blue Horses) appearing on the cover. Marc, who was killed in the Battle of Verdun in WWI would later be termed a “degenerate artist” by the Nazis in their suppression of modern art. Written as a reflection on Marc’s work, almost like an interactive ekphrastic poem, is Franz Marc's Blue Horses in the center of the collection. As much as it details a reaction to Marc’s art, the reader may find themselves considering how much it reflects a reaction to Oliver’s as well and many of her standard themes. Here it is in full:
I step into the painting of the four blue horses.
I am not even surprised that I can do this.
One of the horses walks towards me.
His blue nose noses me lightly. I put my arm
over his blue mane, not holding on, just
commingling.
He allows me my pleasure.
Franz Marc died a young man, shrapnel in his brain.
I would rather die than try to explain to the blue horses
what war is.
They would either faint in horror, or simply
find it impossible to believe.
I do not know how to thanks you, Franz Marc.
Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually.
Maybe the desire to make something beautiful
is the piece of God that is inside each of us.
Now all four horses have come closer,
are bending their faces toward me
as if they have secrets to tell.
I don't expect them to speak, and they don't.
If being so beautiful isn't enough, what
could they possibly say?
The way the speaker steps into the painting with no surprise is not unlike the way Oliver’s poetry pulls you inside it though, instead of blue horses, we are typically treated to the forest or other idyllic natural scenery like her many poems of Blackwater Pond. What really strikes me here, however, is the lines ‘Maybe the desire to make something beautiful / is the piece of God that is inside each of us,’ and how these efforts to make something beautiful come make our world ‘grow kinder.’ Oliver, who has a keen eye for beauty in life has long turned observation into something beautiful and the serenity of her poetry is always a kindness to the reader and to the world. Her poetry puts people at inner peace. And the final lines recall, at least for me, her poem Snowy Nights and the snow falling as if ‘its reason for being was nothing more / than prettiness’ and that being enough. Poetry, like the blue horses, like the snow, is a beacon of beauty in the darkness of the world and our fleeting lives and in Oliver’s hands, it is easy to believe that is enough.
Die grossen blauen Pferde (The Large Blue Horses) by Franz Marc 1911
‘Stay young, always, in the theater of your mind.’
‘I got saved by poetry, and I got saved by the beauty of the world,’ Oliver said in an interview for On Being, and the act of looking into the world to find inspiration for poetry was what led her to the world that saved her. And it can save us too if we remember to look and be mindful (of this Oliver writes that she would like ‘people to remember of me how inexhaustible was her mindfulness’). And poetry can help awaken that. ‘As for the poem,’ she writes, ‘not this poem but any / poem, do you feel its sting? Do you feel / its hope, its entrance to a community? Do / you feel its hand in your hand?’ If our hearts are open, poetry can move us, and poetry helps us communicate. With the author, with each other, with the world. Poetry, Oliver says in the interview, is ‘ very sacred. It wishes for a community — it’s a community ritual, certainly,’ And, as she think of Marc’s painting, it can help make the world kinder if we remember to make something beautiful in order to share it.
Oliver has always made poetry seem like a sacred act, like a prayer, and here, writing near the end of her life, we can see her reflect on how much poetry has been as much a blessing to her as it is to us, her readers.
Bless the notebook that I always carry in
my pocket.
And the pen.
Bless the words with which I try to say
what I see, think, or feel.
With gratitude for the grace of the earth.
The expected and the exception, both.
for all the hours I have been given to
be in this world.
There is a keen awareness of death lurking in each of these poems. She had already lost her partner, Molly Malone Cook, in 2005 and had a bout with lung cancer in 2012. Here we see her reflecting on cancer in Fourth Sign of the Zodiac (which is—you guessed it—cancer), describing it as a hunter moving with careful intent ‘just as the cancer / entered the forest of my body, / without a sound.’ Oliver would pass in 2019 from lymphoma and we can see her considering this possibility all throughout the collection.
The question is,
What will it be like
After the last day?
WIll I float
Into the sky
Or will I fray
Within the earth or a river—
Remembering nothing?
How desperate I would be
If I couldn’t remember
The sun rising, if I couldn’t
Remember trees, rivers; if I couldn’t
Even remember, beloved,
Your beloved name
There is a sadness of potential parting from this world, sure, but also a gratitude for having lived in it and been able to enjoy it. Nature, as always, is at the heart of her gratitude. There is endless love for trees here, such as the poem The Country of the Trees observing how there is no ‘vying for power, inventing corruption’ or in The Oak Tree Loves Patience’ thinking on how the wild word ‘whistles and whispers / in myths and riddles / and not in our language.’ But this language of the natural world is what she urges us to listen to, allow it to soothe our souls because it is something ‘you can count on’ and enjoy. There is also the message that we serve nature, not the other way around, such as the speaker reflecting on an owl in Owl Poem and stating that ‘acceptance of the world requires / that I bow even to you, / Master of the night.’ The beauty of the natural world floods into each poem and, in turn, floods our hearts.
To Be Human Is To Sing Your Own Song
Everything i can think of that my parents
thought or did i don't think and i don't do.
i opened windows, they shut them. i pulled
open the curtains, they shut them. if you
get my drift. of course there were some
similarities - they wanted to be happy and
they weren't. i wanted to be shelley and i
wasn't. i don't mean i didn't have to avoid
imitation, the gloom was pretty heavy. but
then, for me, there was the forest, where
they didn't exist. and the fields. where i
learned about birds and other sweet tidbits
of existence. the song sparrow, for example.
in the song sparrow's nest the nestlings,
those who would sing eventually, must listen
carefully to the father bird as he sings
and make their own song in imitation of his.
i don't know if any other bird does this (in
nature's way has to do this). but i know a
child doesn't have to. doesn't have to.
doesn't have to. and i didn't.
Oliver has always been her own self, an inimitable poet full of grace and beauty. As her poem title states ‘to be human is to sing your own song’ and in many of these poems she celebrates having gone her own way. ‘Let the path become where I choose to walk, and not / otherwise established,’ she writes in On Not Mowing the Lawn, respecting the randomness and disorder in life and nature, one that goes its own way. Or in I Don’t Want To Be Demure or Respectable—a great title—she states ‘I’m not trying to be wise, that would be foolish. / I’m just chattering.’ If this is just chattering, then let her chatter on because so much wisdom flows through it. Oliver was never anyone but herself and Blue Horses, a collection that feels like a culmination of a lifes work in reflection on itself, is certainly hard evidence of this. A lovely read.
4.5/5
Loneliness
I too have known loneliness.
I too have known what it is to feel
misunderstood,
rejected, and suddenly
not at all beautiful.
Oh, mother earth,
your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.
It has saved my life to know this.
Your rivers flowing, your roses opening in the morning.
Oh, motions of tenderness!
Crazy Little Love Song
I don’t want eventual,
I want soon.
It’s 5 a.m. It’s noon.
It’s dusk falling to dark.
I listen to music.
I eat up a few wild poems
while time creeps along
as though it’s got all day.
This is what I have.
The dull hangover of waiting,
the blush of my heart on the damp grass,
the flower-faced moon.
A gull broods on the shore
where a moment ago there were two.
Softly my right hand fondles my left hand
as though it were you.
The collection takes its name from a series of paintings by German artist Franz Marc (1880-1916), with the painting Turm der blauen Pferde (Tower of Blue Horses) appearing on the cover. Marc, who was killed in the Battle of Verdun in WWI would later be termed a “degenerate artist” by the Nazis in their suppression of modern art. Written as a reflection on Marc’s work, almost like an interactive ekphrastic poem, is Franz Marc's Blue Horses in the center of the collection. As much as it details a reaction to Marc’s art, the reader may find themselves considering how much it reflects a reaction to Oliver’s as well and many of her standard themes. Here it is in full:
I step into the painting of the four blue horses.
I am not even surprised that I can do this.
One of the horses walks towards me.
His blue nose noses me lightly. I put my arm
over his blue mane, not holding on, just
commingling.
He allows me my pleasure.
Franz Marc died a young man, shrapnel in his brain.
I would rather die than try to explain to the blue horses
what war is.
They would either faint in horror, or simply
find it impossible to believe.
I do not know how to thanks you, Franz Marc.
Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually.
Maybe the desire to make something beautiful
is the piece of God that is inside each of us.
Now all four horses have come closer,
are bending their faces toward me
as if they have secrets to tell.
I don't expect them to speak, and they don't.
If being so beautiful isn't enough, what
could they possibly say?
The way the speaker steps into the painting with no surprise is not unlike the way Oliver’s poetry pulls you inside it though, instead of blue horses, we are typically treated to the forest or other idyllic natural scenery like her many poems of Blackwater Pond. What really strikes me here, however, is the lines ‘Maybe the desire to make something beautiful / is the piece of God that is inside each of us,’ and how these efforts to make something beautiful come make our world ‘grow kinder.’ Oliver, who has a keen eye for beauty in life has long turned observation into something beautiful and the serenity of her poetry is always a kindness to the reader and to the world. Her poetry puts people at inner peace. And the final lines recall, at least for me, her poem Snowy Nights and the snow falling as if ‘its reason for being was nothing more / than prettiness’ and that being enough. Poetry, like the blue horses, like the snow, is a beacon of beauty in the darkness of the world and our fleeting lives and in Oliver’s hands, it is easy to believe that is enough.
Die grossen blauen Pferde (The Large Blue Horses) by Franz Marc 1911
‘Stay young, always, in the theater of your mind.’
‘I got saved by poetry, and I got saved by the beauty of the world,’ Oliver said in an interview for On Being, and the act of looking into the world to find inspiration for poetry was what led her to the world that saved her. And it can save us too if we remember to look and be mindful (of this Oliver writes that she would like ‘people to remember of me how inexhaustible was her mindfulness’). And poetry can help awaken that. ‘As for the poem,’ she writes, ‘not this poem but any / poem, do you feel its sting? Do you feel / its hope, its entrance to a community? Do / you feel its hand in your hand?’ If our hearts are open, poetry can move us, and poetry helps us communicate. With the author, with each other, with the world. Poetry, Oliver says in the interview, is ‘ very sacred. It wishes for a community — it’s a community ritual, certainly,’ And, as she think of Marc’s painting, it can help make the world kinder if we remember to make something beautiful in order to share it.
‘And that’s why, when you write a poem, you write it for anybody and everybody. And you have to be ready to do that out of your single self. It’s a giving. It’s always — it’s a gift. It’s a gift to yourself, but it’s a gift to anybody who has a hunger for it.’
Oliver has always made poetry seem like a sacred act, like a prayer, and here, writing near the end of her life, we can see her reflect on how much poetry has been as much a blessing to her as it is to us, her readers.
Bless the notebook that I always carry in
my pocket.
And the pen.
Bless the words with which I try to say
what I see, think, or feel.
With gratitude for the grace of the earth.
The expected and the exception, both.
for all the hours I have been given to
be in this world.
There is a keen awareness of death lurking in each of these poems. She had already lost her partner, Molly Malone Cook, in 2005 and had a bout with lung cancer in 2012. Here we see her reflecting on cancer in Fourth Sign of the Zodiac (which is—you guessed it—cancer), describing it as a hunter moving with careful intent ‘just as the cancer / entered the forest of my body, / without a sound.’ Oliver would pass in 2019 from lymphoma and we can see her considering this possibility all throughout the collection.
The question is,
What will it be like
After the last day?
WIll I float
Into the sky
Or will I fray
Within the earth or a river—
Remembering nothing?
How desperate I would be
If I couldn’t remember
The sun rising, if I couldn’t
Remember trees, rivers; if I couldn’t
Even remember, beloved,
Your beloved name
There is a sadness of potential parting from this world, sure, but also a gratitude for having lived in it and been able to enjoy it. Nature, as always, is at the heart of her gratitude. There is endless love for trees here, such as the poem The Country of the Trees observing how there is no ‘vying for power, inventing corruption’ or in The Oak Tree Loves Patience’ thinking on how the wild word ‘whistles and whispers / in myths and riddles / and not in our language.’ But this language of the natural world is what she urges us to listen to, allow it to soothe our souls because it is something ‘you can count on’ and enjoy. There is also the message that we serve nature, not the other way around, such as the speaker reflecting on an owl in Owl Poem and stating that ‘acceptance of the world requires / that I bow even to you, / Master of the night.’ The beauty of the natural world floods into each poem and, in turn, floods our hearts.
To Be Human Is To Sing Your Own Song
Everything i can think of that my parents
thought or did i don't think and i don't do.
i opened windows, they shut them. i pulled
open the curtains, they shut them. if you
get my drift. of course there were some
similarities - they wanted to be happy and
they weren't. i wanted to be shelley and i
wasn't. i don't mean i didn't have to avoid
imitation, the gloom was pretty heavy. but
then, for me, there was the forest, where
they didn't exist. and the fields. where i
learned about birds and other sweet tidbits
of existence. the song sparrow, for example.
in the song sparrow's nest the nestlings,
those who would sing eventually, must listen
carefully to the father bird as he sings
and make their own song in imitation of his.
i don't know if any other bird does this (in
nature's way has to do this). but i know a
child doesn't have to. doesn't have to.
doesn't have to. and i didn't.
Oliver has always been her own self, an inimitable poet full of grace and beauty. As her poem title states ‘to be human is to sing your own song’ and in many of these poems she celebrates having gone her own way. ‘Let the path become where I choose to walk, and not / otherwise established,’ she writes in On Not Mowing the Lawn, respecting the randomness and disorder in life and nature, one that goes its own way. Or in I Don’t Want To Be Demure or Respectable—a great title—she states ‘I’m not trying to be wise, that would be foolish. / I’m just chattering.’ If this is just chattering, then let her chatter on because so much wisdom flows through it. Oliver was never anyone but herself and Blue Horses, a collection that feels like a culmination of a lifes work in reflection on itself, is certainly hard evidence of this. A lovely read.
4.5/5
Loneliness
I too have known loneliness.
I too have known what it is to feel
misunderstood,
rejected, and suddenly
not at all beautiful.
Oh, mother earth,
your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.
It has saved my life to know this.
Your rivers flowing, your roses opening in the morning.
Oh, motions of tenderness!
October 21, 2015
"It must be a great disappointment
to God if we are not dazzled at least ten
times a day."
I am honored to share this earth with Mary Oliver.
to God if we are not dazzled at least ten
times a day."
I am honored to share this earth with Mary Oliver.
May 30, 2025
Reading these poems was like hearing my own thoughts in Mary Oliver’s voice.
Her words are, and will forever be, one of my greatest comforts.
***
The Hummingbirds by Mary Oliver
In this book
there are many hummingbirds—
the blue throated, the bumblebee, the calliope,
the cinnamon, the lucifer, and of course
the ruby-throated.
Imagine!
Well, that’s all you can do.
For they’re swift as the wind.
and they fly, not across the pages but,
like many shy and otherworldly things,
between them.
I know you’ll keep looking now that I’ve told you.
I’m hungry to see them too, but I can’t
hold them back even for a moment, they’re
busy, as all things are, with their own lives.
So all I can do is let you know
they’re here somewhere.
All I can do is tell you
by putting my own hunger on the page.
Her words are, and will forever be, one of my greatest comforts.
***
The Hummingbirds by Mary Oliver
In this book
there are many hummingbirds—
the blue throated, the bumblebee, the calliope,
the cinnamon, the lucifer, and of course
the ruby-throated.
Imagine!
Well, that’s all you can do.
For they’re swift as the wind.
and they fly, not across the pages but,
like many shy and otherworldly things,
between them.
I know you’ll keep looking now that I’ve told you.
I’m hungry to see them too, but I can’t
hold them back even for a moment, they’re
busy, as all things are, with their own lives.
So all I can do is let you know
they’re here somewhere.
All I can do is tell you
by putting my own hunger on the page.
November 20, 2020
LITTLE CRAZY LOVE SONG
I don't want eventual,
I want soon.
It's 5 a.m. It's noon.
It's dusk falling to dark.
I listen to music.
I eat up a few wild poems
while time creeps along
as though it's got all day.
This is what I have.
The dull hangover of waiting,
the blush of my heart on the damp grass,
the flower-faced moon.
A gull broods on the shore
where a moment ago there were two.
Softly my right hand fondles my left hand
as though it were you.
January 7, 2025
every single time i read this i have found something new in it. i have connected to it in a different way. Mary Oliver the woman that you are… my everything….
March 18, 2015
Saying this wasn't my favorite of Mary Oliver's collections is like saying I preferred Tuesday's sunset to Thursday's. It's all relative. Her poetry is always revelatory and beautiful. But I will return to others for inspiration and peace and catharsis.
April 18, 2020
“Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually. Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us.”
December 7, 2017
from Blue Horses:
"The Country Of The Trees"
There is no king in their country
and there is no queen
and there are no princes vying for power,
inventing corruption.
Just as with us many children are born
and some will live and some will die and the country
will continue.
The weather will always be important.
And there will always be room for the weak, the violets
and the bloodroot.
When it is cold they will be given blankets of leaves.
When it is hot they will be given shade.
And not out of guilt, neither for a year-end deduction
but maybe for the cheer of their colors, their
small flower faces.
They are not like us.
Some will perish to become houses or barns,
fences and bridges.
Others will endure past the counting of years.
And none will ever speak a single word of complaint,
as though language, after all,
did not work well enough, was only an early stage.
Neither do they ever have any questions to the gods---
which one is the real one, and what is the plan.
As though they have been told everything already,
and are content.
Mary Oliver had been writing poetry more than 40 years before I ever read “The Journey” and “Wild Geese,” and she became one of my favorite poets. Her work drops me down into a meditative realm, and I feel the homey and raw aspects of this natural world that are feeding my body and senses at all times.
The 39 poems in Blue Horses are much like prayers, I think. They don’t strive to answer questions, but turn things over like seasons in the hand. Some favorites (this week) are “Blueberries,” “Such Silence,” “Watering the Stones,” “Drifting,” “On Not Watering The Lawn,” “Do Stones Feel?,” “What Gorgeous Thing,” and “The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac.”
Somehow Mary Oliver’s poetry makes me feel that her attentiveness to this world is because she was a stone, or a wren, or a cloud before she came here; and when she leaves she will become a hummingbird, or a violet, or a bluebird next time around.
"The Country Of The Trees"
There is no king in their country
and there is no queen
and there are no princes vying for power,
inventing corruption.
Just as with us many children are born
and some will live and some will die and the country
will continue.
The weather will always be important.
And there will always be room for the weak, the violets
and the bloodroot.
When it is cold they will be given blankets of leaves.
When it is hot they will be given shade.
And not out of guilt, neither for a year-end deduction
but maybe for the cheer of their colors, their
small flower faces.
They are not like us.
Some will perish to become houses or barns,
fences and bridges.
Others will endure past the counting of years.
And none will ever speak a single word of complaint,
as though language, after all,
did not work well enough, was only an early stage.
Neither do they ever have any questions to the gods---
which one is the real one, and what is the plan.
As though they have been told everything already,
and are content.
Mary Oliver had been writing poetry more than 40 years before I ever read “The Journey” and “Wild Geese,” and she became one of my favorite poets. Her work drops me down into a meditative realm, and I feel the homey and raw aspects of this natural world that are feeding my body and senses at all times.
The 39 poems in Blue Horses are much like prayers, I think. They don’t strive to answer questions, but turn things over like seasons in the hand. Some favorites (this week) are “Blueberries,” “Such Silence,” “Watering the Stones,” “Drifting,” “On Not Watering The Lawn,” “Do Stones Feel?,” “What Gorgeous Thing,” and “The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac.”
Somehow Mary Oliver’s poetry makes me feel that her attentiveness to this world is because she was a stone, or a wren, or a cloud before she came here; and when she leaves she will become a hummingbird, or a violet, or a bluebird next time around.
June 10, 2021
after all of this i just want to take a walk on the softest grass and think about how “maybe our world will grow kinder eventually. maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of god that is inside each of us.”
Read
April 24, 2023Mary Oliver is the voice of nature and spring. It’s a joy to come to one of her collections once in a while, because her sound is exactly that of the first April breeze that finally fails to freeze your face, instead rejuvenating everything inside you and slowly fanning the first flames of the summer heat.
I enjoyed these poems within the collection:
-Rumi
-What We Want
-Good Morning
-The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac
Here is Rumi:
When Rumi went into the tavern
I followed.
I heard a lot of crazy talk
and a lot of wise talk.
But the roses wouldn’t grow in my hair.
When Rumi left the tavern
I followed.
I don’t mean just to peek at
such a famous fellow.
Indeed he was rather ridiculous with his
long beard and his dusty feet.
But I heard less of the crazy talk and
a lot more of the wise talk and I was
hopeful enough to keep listening
until the day I found myself
transformed into an entire garden
of roses.
I enjoyed these poems within the collection:
-Rumi
-What We Want
-Good Morning
-The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac
Here is Rumi:
When Rumi went into the tavern
I followed.
I heard a lot of crazy talk
and a lot of wise talk.
But the roses wouldn’t grow in my hair.
When Rumi left the tavern
I followed.
I don’t mean just to peek at
such a famous fellow.
Indeed he was rather ridiculous with his
long beard and his dusty feet.
But I heard less of the crazy talk and
a lot more of the wise talk and I was
hopeful enough to keep listening
until the day I found myself
transformed into an entire garden
of roses.
August 10, 2017
1.5
Abysmal she cries
as the last pages unfold
for 79 pages of writing,
yet not one struck bold
The beginning was weak and left much
for desire it comes in the second half
but by then my fantasies start to unravel
Most often it felt like the thoughts in ones head
as they held no rhythm nor rhyme despite all they said.
A soft brush that tries to uncover
but ends up more smudgier
Such were the poems by a Miss Mary Oliver
A hazy afternoon summer
soon merged with another
and all together felt
forgotten
Abysmal she cries
as the last pages unfold
for 79 pages of writing,
yet not one struck bold
The beginning was weak and left much
for desire it comes in the second half
but by then my fantasies start to unravel
Most often it felt like the thoughts in ones head
as they held no rhythm nor rhyme despite all they said.
A soft brush that tries to uncover
but ends up more smudgier
Such were the poems by a Miss Mary Oliver
A hazy afternoon summer
soon merged with another
and all together felt
forgotten
December 26, 2014
"I would like people to remember of me, how
inexhaustible was her mindfulness."
-from A Little Ado About This and That
I don't think I realized that Mary Oliver had come out with another volume of poetry, but she's one of my favorites, and when I saw it at the public library I snagged it right away.
Mary Oliver, born in 1935, never ceases to amaze me. Many of her poems reflect on nature, but she is always having new experiences and learning more about herself. Some of these poems give an insight to a new home, and a new love, even now so late in life. I would recommend her outlook to anyone needing a bit of a boost, anyone who feels lonely, or anyone who has had to forge their own path.
"..In the song sparrow's nest the nestlings,
those who would sing eventually, must listen
carefully to the father bird as he sings
and make their own song in imitation of his.
I don't know if any other bird does this (in
nature's way has to do this). But I know a
child doesn't have to. Doesn't have to.
Doesn't have to. And I didn't."
-from To Be Human is to Sing Your Own Song
inexhaustible was her mindfulness."
-from A Little Ado About This and That
I don't think I realized that Mary Oliver had come out with another volume of poetry, but she's one of my favorites, and when I saw it at the public library I snagged it right away.
Mary Oliver, born in 1935, never ceases to amaze me. Many of her poems reflect on nature, but she is always having new experiences and learning more about herself. Some of these poems give an insight to a new home, and a new love, even now so late in life. I would recommend her outlook to anyone needing a bit of a boost, anyone who feels lonely, or anyone who has had to forge their own path.
"..In the song sparrow's nest the nestlings,
those who would sing eventually, must listen
carefully to the father bird as he sings
and make their own song in imitation of his.
I don't know if any other bird does this (in
nature's way has to do this). But I know a
child doesn't have to. Doesn't have to.
Doesn't have to. And I didn't."
-from To Be Human is to Sing Your Own Song
August 11, 2021
Mary Oliver’s poetry is my safe space
November 9, 2021
Stay young, always, in the theater of your
mind.
There's something comforting about Mary Oliver that makes me believe that she can cure all my sadness and replace it with the calmness of her words. How lovely, sweet and divine! I wish I was a character out of her books, sigh.
April 3, 2023
Mary Oliver is a magician; with slight of hand she shows you what was right in front of you - but you did not see it. It is this slight of hand that draws the reader in; but once perceived the questions become hidden - and a process of discovery must be followed. One of the best poetry books I have read so far this year.
April 7, 2019
Mary Oliver had a gift for quietly cutting to the heart of the matter. Her ability to speak of deep, universal truths in simple language can leave one breathless. This particular collection is not her strongest but the three poems that I will return to are:
I Woke
The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac
The Country of the Trees
3.5 stars overall
I Woke
The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac
The Country of the Trees
3.5 stars overall
January 8, 2015
Most long time fans of Oliver (but most will call her Mary, since she does seem to be speaking directly to you, and you get a sense from her, more than most poets, that you know her) will not be dissuaded. This is yet another love letter to you, and to the earth. And many of her familiar themes are here, which can be basically summed up: Pay attention, and especially so to nature, because if you do, you will see she is speaking to you. For example, stones she picks up and puts with water in a jar, as so many of us have done or still do, they speak to her, to us, of places and times. A poem about a painting of Blue Horses is acclaimed for doing what she has begged us for decades to do. He pays attention in his art, and that is a lovely poem.
But these poems are not among her best work, as attractively packaged as they are, with the painting of the blue horses on the cover. The poems are generally short, and in this way inviting, but they are more discursive and reflective than lyrical. She talks to us. She wrestles with "the poetic" in these poems, both explicitly (she talks of this subject) and implicitly (in that she consciously works to make her language plain and every day, with a direct address to her readers) and what distances some people from poetry through language. And that is good, she reaches out to us, she is against affectations of the academic poets, and yet her language is often elegant and powerful in places.. just less so than in some of her earlier work. But I have loved her work and will likely read it/her until she writes no more, and then will read her again.
But these poems are not among her best work, as attractively packaged as they are, with the painting of the blue horses on the cover. The poems are generally short, and in this way inviting, but they are more discursive and reflective than lyrical. She talks to us. She wrestles with "the poetic" in these poems, both explicitly (she talks of this subject) and implicitly (in that she consciously works to make her language plain and every day, with a direct address to her readers) and what distances some people from poetry through language. And that is good, she reaches out to us, she is against affectations of the academic poets, and yet her language is often elegant and powerful in places.. just less so than in some of her earlier work. But I have loved her work and will likely read it/her until she writes no more, and then will read her again.
June 24, 2022
her poetry just makes me feel so much
June 29, 2022
“What kind of life is it always to plan and do, to promise and finish, to wish for the near and safe?”
February 26, 2019
As is typical of Mary Oliver, this collection included many poems about the natural world and being alone in nature. Wonderful, evocative language throughout makes this a pick.
December 8, 2014
From the poem A Little Ado About This And That included in this volume:
"I would like people to remember of me, how inexhaustible was her mindfulness."
There is no doubt that this is how Oliver will be remembered. Her outlook in this slim, attractive book remains positive, never cloying, and is tinged with welcome humor and even sadness as she approaches death -- though as fitting with her persona, she turns that into affirmation as well.
Any previous exposure I've had to Oliver's poems has been via the internet and I've loved them all, though the first one I came across online remains my favorite of hers:
The Poet with His Face in His Hands
You want to cry aloud for your
mistakes. But to tell the truth the world
doesn’t need anymore of that sound.
So if you’re going to do it and can’t
stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t
hold it in, at least go by yourself across
the forty fields and the forty dark inclines
of rocks and water to the place where
the falls are flinging out their white sheets
like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that
jubilation and water fun and you can
stand there, under it, and roar all you
want and nothing will be disturbed; you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched
by the passing foil of the water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.
–Mary Oliver
http://parabola-magazine.tumblr.com/p...
"I would like people to remember of me, how inexhaustible was her mindfulness."
There is no doubt that this is how Oliver will be remembered. Her outlook in this slim, attractive book remains positive, never cloying, and is tinged with welcome humor and even sadness as she approaches death -- though as fitting with her persona, she turns that into affirmation as well.
Any previous exposure I've had to Oliver's poems has been via the internet and I've loved them all, though the first one I came across online remains my favorite of hers:
The Poet with His Face in His Hands
You want to cry aloud for your
mistakes. But to tell the truth the world
doesn’t need anymore of that sound.
So if you’re going to do it and can’t
stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t
hold it in, at least go by yourself across
the forty fields and the forty dark inclines
of rocks and water to the place where
the falls are flinging out their white sheets
like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that
jubilation and water fun and you can
stand there, under it, and roar all you
want and nothing will be disturbed; you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched
by the passing foil of the water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.
–Mary Oliver
http://parabola-magazine.tumblr.com/p...
December 29, 2024
“The question is,
what will it be like
after the last day?
Will I float
into the sky
or will I fray
within the earth or a river—
remembering nothing?
How desperate I would be
if I couldn’t remember
the sun rising, if I couldn’t
remember trees, rivers; if I couldn’t
even remember, beloved,
your beloved name.”
it’s been far too long since i sat down with some of mary oliver’s work. she writes about nature and about life in such a rich, soft, delicate way that truly makes me want to see more beauty in the mundane. there is so much beauty and magic and wonder in the world!!!! go outside and watch some birds dammit!!!!
December 22, 2014
When I heard that Mary Oliver’s new poetry collection ‘Blue Horses’ has come out, I couldn’t wait to get it and read it. I read it in one breath. Here is what I think.
‘Blue Horses’ has thirty-eight poems. They are on topics which are close to Mary Oliver’s heart – nature, plants, trees, flowers, animals, insects, seasons. There are also poems on love, art, yoga, spirituality and other everyday topics. Each poem is different – each has a different number of lines, some are short some are long, there is no consistency in terms of form and structure – but all of them are beautiful. If one is new to Mary Oliver, one would expect that at some point she would unfurl all the poetic pyrotechnics and dazzle the reader – something that might intimidate the non-specialist reader of poetry – but one would be wrong. Mary Oliver doesn’t bother with metre and rhyme and rhythm and alliteration and the iamb and the dactyl and the trochee. She just writes one beautiful poem after another in free verse which is accessible to the general reader and touches our hearts with beautiful images and thoughts and in the process makes it look so deceptively simple, like the best poets do.
I loved every poem in the book. Here are a few of my favourites.
What I Can Do
The television has two instruments that control it.
I get confused.
The washer asks me, do you want regular or delicate?
Honestly, I just want clean.
Everything is like that.
I won’t even mention cell phones.
I can turn on the light of the lamp beside my chair
where a book is waiting, but that’s about it.
Oh yes, and I can strike a match and make fire.
No Matter What
No matter what the world claims,
its wisdom always growing, so it’s said,
some things don’t alter with time :
the first kiss is a good example,
and the flighty sweetness of rhyme.
No matter what the world preaches
spring unfolds in its appointed time,
the violets open and the roses,
snow in its hour builds its shining curves,
there’s the laughter of children at play,
and the wholesome sweetness of rhyme.
No matter what the world does,
some things don’t alter with time.
The first kiss, the first death.
The sorrowful sweetness of rhyme.
If I Wanted a Boat
I would want a boat, if I wanted a
boat, that bounded hard on the waves,
that didn’t know starboard from port
and wouldn’t learn, that welcomed
dolphins and headed straight for the
whales, that, when rocks were close,
would slide in for a touch or two,
that wouldn’t keep land in sight and
went fast, that leaped into the spray.
What kind of life is it always to plan
and do, to promise and finish, to wish
for the near and the safe? Yes, by the
heavens, if I wanted a boat I would want
a boat I couldn’t steer.
Do Stones Feel?
Do stones feel?
Do they love their life?
Or does their patience drown out everything else?
When I walk on the beach I gather a few
white ones, dark ones, the multiple colors,
Don’t worry, I say, I’ll bring you back, and I do.
Is the tree as it rises delighted with its many
Branches,
each one like a poem?
Are the clouds glad to unburden their bundles of rain?
Most of the world says no, no, it’s not possible.
I refuse to think to such a conclusion.
Too terrible it would be, to be wrong.
Have you read ‘Blue Horses’? What do you think about it?
‘Blue Horses’ has thirty-eight poems. They are on topics which are close to Mary Oliver’s heart – nature, plants, trees, flowers, animals, insects, seasons. There are also poems on love, art, yoga, spirituality and other everyday topics. Each poem is different – each has a different number of lines, some are short some are long, there is no consistency in terms of form and structure – but all of them are beautiful. If one is new to Mary Oliver, one would expect that at some point she would unfurl all the poetic pyrotechnics and dazzle the reader – something that might intimidate the non-specialist reader of poetry – but one would be wrong. Mary Oliver doesn’t bother with metre and rhyme and rhythm and alliteration and the iamb and the dactyl and the trochee. She just writes one beautiful poem after another in free verse which is accessible to the general reader and touches our hearts with beautiful images and thoughts and in the process makes it look so deceptively simple, like the best poets do.
I loved every poem in the book. Here are a few of my favourites.
What I Can Do
The television has two instruments that control it.
I get confused.
The washer asks me, do you want regular or delicate?
Honestly, I just want clean.
Everything is like that.
I won’t even mention cell phones.
I can turn on the light of the lamp beside my chair
where a book is waiting, but that’s about it.
Oh yes, and I can strike a match and make fire.
No Matter What
No matter what the world claims,
its wisdom always growing, so it’s said,
some things don’t alter with time :
the first kiss is a good example,
and the flighty sweetness of rhyme.
No matter what the world preaches
spring unfolds in its appointed time,
the violets open and the roses,
snow in its hour builds its shining curves,
there’s the laughter of children at play,
and the wholesome sweetness of rhyme.
No matter what the world does,
some things don’t alter with time.
The first kiss, the first death.
The sorrowful sweetness of rhyme.
If I Wanted a Boat
I would want a boat, if I wanted a
boat, that bounded hard on the waves,
that didn’t know starboard from port
and wouldn’t learn, that welcomed
dolphins and headed straight for the
whales, that, when rocks were close,
would slide in for a touch or two,
that wouldn’t keep land in sight and
went fast, that leaped into the spray.
What kind of life is it always to plan
and do, to promise and finish, to wish
for the near and the safe? Yes, by the
heavens, if I wanted a boat I would want
a boat I couldn’t steer.
Do Stones Feel?
Do stones feel?
Do they love their life?
Or does their patience drown out everything else?
When I walk on the beach I gather a few
white ones, dark ones, the multiple colors,
Don’t worry, I say, I’ll bring you back, and I do.
Is the tree as it rises delighted with its many
Branches,
each one like a poem?
Are the clouds glad to unburden their bundles of rain?
Most of the world says no, no, it’s not possible.
I refuse to think to such a conclusion.
Too terrible it would be, to be wrong.
Have you read ‘Blue Horses’? What do you think about it?
June 26, 2022
4.5/5 Stars
What a wonderful surprise!
I've heard Mary Oliver's name being thrown here and there. I know of Upstream and Devotion, but I managed to find this little book for a bargained price, and decided to give it a try! (I also was extremely attracted to the cover)
This was just a warm, cozy read. Oliver is so honest in her opinions, in her thoughts, in herself. It's just so refreshing to read from. She's not trying to be over-pretentious, but her writing is so beautiful! This is a great entry point I think to poetry!
This collection tells of Oliver's relationship with nature, and how it has affected her throughout her life. Different artists also make some cameos (Keates and Franz Marc [the painter of the cover art]) and she touches on how they've shaped her as a person.
Honestly, reading this while outside is the best way to consume it. I highly recommend this collection, and I'll definitely be reading more of Oliver's works!
What a wonderful surprise!
I've heard Mary Oliver's name being thrown here and there. I know of Upstream and Devotion, but I managed to find this little book for a bargained price, and decided to give it a try! (I also was extremely attracted to the cover)
This was just a warm, cozy read. Oliver is so honest in her opinions, in her thoughts, in herself. It's just so refreshing to read from. She's not trying to be over-pretentious, but her writing is so beautiful! This is a great entry point I think to poetry!
This collection tells of Oliver's relationship with nature, and how it has affected her throughout her life. Different artists also make some cameos (Keates and Franz Marc [the painter of the cover art]) and she touches on how they've shaped her as a person.
Honestly, reading this while outside is the best way to consume it. I highly recommend this collection, and I'll definitely be reading more of Oliver's works!
April 26, 2024
FORGIVE ME
Angels are wonderful but they are so, well, aloof.
It’s what I sense in the mud and the roots of the
trees, or the well, or the barn, or the rock with
its citron map of lichen that halts my feet and
makes my eyes flare, feeling the presence of some
spirit, some small god, who abides there.
If I were a perfect person, I would be bowing
continuously.
I’m not, though I pause wherever I feel this
holiness, which is why I’m often so late coming
back from wherever I went.
Forgive me.
Angels are wonderful but they are so, well, aloof.
It’s what I sense in the mud and the roots of the
trees, or the well, or the barn, or the rock with
its citron map of lichen that halts my feet and
makes my eyes flare, feeling the presence of some
spirit, some small god, who abides there.
If I were a perfect person, I would be bowing
continuously.
I’m not, though I pause wherever I feel this
holiness, which is why I’m often so late coming
back from wherever I went.
Forgive me.
January 20, 2015
There are not a lot of poems in this collection, but each one is perfect. No one can write about nature like Mary Oliver. I read "The Country of Trees" four times and found something new with each reading. That poem alone was worth the price of the book, and more. I'll keep this one close to hand, because I'll pick it up often.
December 3, 2014
Collection of short but wonderful recollections. Nature and the realism of every day life. Had to laugh at the poem about yoga, I really related to this one since I have the same problem.
Thanks Jeannie for the recommendation.
Thanks Jeannie for the recommendation.
October 31, 2024
95th book of 2024.
Not sure I even half-liked a single one of these. Empty words.
Not sure I even half-liked a single one of these. Empty words.
October 19, 2014
The epigraph beckons you in...
If you don't break your ropes while you're alive
do you think
ghosts will do it after?
~Kabir
...and the beauty bids you stay.
If you don't break your ropes while you're alive
do you think
ghosts will do it after?
~Kabir
...and the beauty bids you stay.
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