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Rating: 
Summary: Plowing the natural world with prose-horse in harness.
Review: For Pulitzer-Prize and National-Book-Award winning poet, Mary Oliver, the big question the world throws at her every morning is, "Here you are, alive. Would like to make a comment?" This book, she says, is her comment (p. xiv). Given the choice of prose-horse in harness, or the horse of poetry with wings, Oliver says that she would rather fly than plow (p. xiv). However, in this rare collection of essays (punctuated with an occasional poem), Oliver mostly plows.Oliver's prose here is both memorable and radiant. As in most of her poetry, these essays draw their inspiration from the natural world, which has always offered Oliver the hint of our single and immense divinity--"a million unopened fountains" (p. 19). In her solitude--a "prerequisite to being openly and joyfully susceptible and responsive to the world of leaves, light, birdsong, flowers, [and] flowing water" (p. 22), we find Oliver contemplating the "connection between soul and landscape" in these essays, which explore death, the poetry of unleashed dogs, the town dump, sprawl, Wordsworth, Emerson, and Hawthorne. In one of my all-time favorite Oliver moments, she asks, "What would it be like to live one whole day as a Ruskin sentence, wandering like a creek with little comma bridges" (p. 85)? In her poetry, Oliver soars. In her prose, she digs deep. G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: Plowing the natural world with prose-horse in harness.
Review: For Pulitzer-Prize and National-Book-Award winning poet, Mary Oliver, the big question the world throws at her every morning is, "Here you are, alive. Would like to make a comment?" This book, she says, is her comment (p. xiv). Given the choice of prose-horse in harness, or the horse of poetry with wings, Oliver says that she would rather fly than plow (p. xiv). However, in this rare collection of essays (punctuated with an occasional poem), Oliver mostly plows. Oliver's prose here is both memorable and radiant. As in most of her poetry, these essays draw their inspiration from the natural world, which has always offered Oliver the hint of our single and immense divinity--"a million unopened fountains" (p. 19). In her solitude--a "prerequisite to being openly and joyfully susceptible and responsive to the world of leaves, light, birdsong, flowers, [and] flowing water" (p. 22), we find Oliver contemplating the "connection between soul and landscape" in these essays, which explore death, the poetry of unleashed dogs, the town dump, sprawl, Wordsworth, Emerson, and Hawthorne. In one of my all-time favorite Oliver moments, she asks, "What would it be like to live one whole day as a Ruskin sentence, wandering like a creek with little comma bridges" (p. 85)? In her poetry, Oliver soars. In her prose, she digs deep. G. Merritt
Rating: 
Summary: My Only Wish? That "Long Life" was Longer.....
Review: I will be perpetually grateful to my friend who introduced me to Mary Oliver's work. I was so excited to read she had released another book I could not wait to get my hands on it. The Amazon box arrived and I excitedly tore it open and began to read. Exquisite. One simple word to describe Mary Oliver's work. I enjoy her poetry and her books about how to write poetry so I was curious about how this mostly essay book would fare. I was not disappointed. A couple of the chapters wobbled very slightly: I was curious about the inclusion of the previously published essays on Emerson and Hawthorne. While they were interesting, they seemed a bit out of place with the other chapters. I especially appreciated the peek into parts of the author's personal life that I had not been privy to in the past. I loved witnessing more of her life, connecting to the stories and nodding my head as she observed the day unfold about her. My favorite quote from the book goes like this: "It is the intimate, never the general, that is teacherly. The idea of love is not love. The idea of the ocean is neither salt nor sand; the face of the seal cannot rise from the idea to stare at you, to astound your heart." Ahhhh - yes! The book is short - only 101 pages - and I know I will read it again and again and again and hope Mary Oliver blesses us with another book soon.
Rating:
Summary: My Only Wish? That "Long Life" was Longer.....
Review: I will be perpetually grateful to my friend who introduced me to Mary Oliver's work. I was so excited to read she had released another book I could not wait to get my hands on it. The Amazon box arrived and I excitedly tore it open and began to read. Exquisite. One simple word to describe Mary Oliver's work. I enjoy her poetry and her books about how to write poetry so I was curious about how this mostly essay book would fare. I was not disappointed. A couple of the chapters wobbled very slightly: I was curious about the inclusion of the previously published essays on Emerson and Hawthorne. While they were interesting, they seemed a bit out of place with the other chapters. I especially appreciated the peek into parts of the author's personal life that I had not been privy to in the past. I loved witnessing more of her life, connecting to the stories and nodding my head as she observed the day unfold about her. My favorite quote from the book goes like this: "It is the intimate, never the general, that is teacherly. The idea of love is not love. The idea of the ocean is neither salt nor sand; the face of the seal cannot rise from the idea to stare at you, to astound your heart." Ahhhh - yes! The book is short - only 101 pages - and I know I will read it again and again and again and hope Mary Oliver blesses us with another book soon.
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