The poems in “Devotions” seem to have been chosen by Oliver in an attempt to offer a definitive collection of her work.

These poems were inspired by what is often unobserved - Queen Anne’s Lace in an 'unworked field' making ‘all the loveliness it can’ or a swan ‘rising into the silvery air, an armful of white blossoms, a perfect commotion of silk and linen.

Born in a small town in Ohio, Mary Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28. Later in the book, as we approach her at a younger age, she's more metaphorical, more experimental, and, frankly, more interesting to me. It is very nice to have selected poems from books not available as ebooks and those that are out of print: What Do We Know, The Leaf And The Cloud, White Pine, American Primitive, Twelve Moons, The River Styx, Ohio, and No Voyage. Born in a small town in Ohio, Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28; No Voyage and Other Poems, originally printed in the UK by Dent Press, was reissued in the United States in 1965 by Houghton Mifflin. Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item.

During Oliver’s forty-plus years in Provincetown—she now lives in Florida, where, she says, “I’m trying very hard to love the mangroves”—she seems to have been regarded as a cross between a celebrity recluse and a village oracle. The reviews and comments posted on this site reflect the opinions of individual posters and do not reflect the views of Cannonball Read. Her evocative, energizing voice offered a fresh, accessible take on what many consider to be an esoteric, staid genre.On the morning the Pulitzer was announced, she was scouring the town dump for shingles to use on her house. Those looking for an in-depth and expansive look at her works should certainly turn to Devotions, a selected poems spanning her entire career from her first collection, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 when Oliver was only 28, to her final book in 2015, Felicity.

What saves this, and many other Mary Oliver poems from sentimentality is the acknowledgment of how ‘ridiculous’ the birds’ singing contest is, even while it is deliriously life-affirming too. Below, we select and introduce ten of Mary Oliver’s best poems, and offer some reasons why she continues to speak to us about nature and about ourselves.To read her work without this embodied sense is to miss the beauty of the energetic transmission within the words.

In an extraction of eleven poems from her collection of new poems from 2005, Oliver bade us pay attention to the natural world in every season. whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Oliver is notoriously reticent about her private life, but it was during this period that she met her long-time partner, Molly Malone Cook. From 1995, for five years, she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College.Her work remains some of the most quoted of contemporary verse, resonating with readers in part because of its bravery in facing – with determination, sadness and defiant joy – the most difficult aspects of being alive. The child who had trouble with the concept of Resurrection in church finds it more easily in the wild. Other poems contain Oliver’s reflections on the approach of winter and her own Life Story against the infinite cycle in nature’s diurnal ebb and flow.