Thirst: Poems by Mary Oliver Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Thirst: Poems
Book Review: Excellent poetry
Summary: 5 Stars
I so loved this collection of Mary Oliver's poetry. This is my first introduction to her work and I found it amazing. I was so moved by her poem, "When Roses Speak, I Pay Attention." I read it over and over to let it really sink in.Book Review: an oasis in a mad,mad,mad,mad, world!
Summary: 5 Stars
This was our introduction to Mary Oliver. This lady has an amazing ear for words and eye for the natural world. My husband and I both read it from cover to cover in one sitting and indeed found precious moments of calm and tranquility in a stressed out world. You might look at things a little differently after reading this book. We bought copies for our friends and family for Christmas.Book Review: How Grief Edges Joy
Summary: 5 Stars
Live long enough, live deep enough, and you will find, as Mary Oliver does in these 43 poems collected in "Thirst," that all grief edges joy, all joy is edged by grief. It is only in a deep and courageous immersion into life, and perhaps also that place beyond life, that one can fully experience this wonder, a kind of yin and yang, the light beside the shadow, phenomenon that is living with thirst, quenched or unquenched.
There is nothing pretentious about Oliver's poetry. She is simplicity and purity itself. Thirst is how she approaches living, and now dying - in her expression of grief for the loss of her longtime life partner. This does not change how she approaches living, only intensifies it. "My work is loving the world," she writes in her opening poem, "Messenger." She observes the world, then observes herself in it, part and parcel. "Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums./Here the clam deep in the speckled sand./Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?/Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me/keep my mind on what matters,/which is my work,/which is mostly standing still and learning to be/astonished."
Much of this collection is Oliver's conversation with God having a conversation with her. Their dialogue is filtered by nature, where everyplace is a place of worship and every living thing ministering to her and she reciprocating. Her dogs speak of unconditional love and simple acceptance, an exchanged gaze with a snake is looking into the eyes of divinity (and not the darker side). Praying can be done through the weeds in a vacant lot. The words do not have to be elaborate, Oliver writes, "but a doorway/into thanks, and a silence in which/another voice may speak." This same sentiment is echoed with utmost simplicity in the poem, "The Uses of Sorrow" - that a box full of darkness given to her by another can also be a gift, a richer blessing.
When you think you cannot go closer, or dive deeper, or come up into brighter light, as Oliver writes in her poetry - you can. Just when you think Oliver cannot elicit more beauty out of the everyday word - she does. We thirst for more.
Book Review: Disappointingly Party Line
Summary: 2 Stars
Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets. It was disappointing to read this collection of trite Christian verse. Whereas her past poems suggested an almost pagan, pantheistic spiritual fervor for nature, these poems drip with the cliches of Christendom: god, the "Lord," and JC himself. I found myself yearning for the broader, more universal spirituality of Oliver's older poems. I am less interested in this recent work than in her previous work.Book Review: Delicious
Summary: 5 Stars
Oh, there's only one Mary Oliver.
"My work is to love the world."
Just that line was worth all the money....and there are many more!