The Small Revolution of Mary Oliver’s Poetry

Last updated on: January 21, 2019 at 10:13 am by Maren Grossman

The Small Revolution of Mary Oliver’s Poetry 2019-01-21T10:13:05-05:00 Maren Grossman

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Sometime in 2016, a profusion of quotations by Mary Oliver flitted across my Facebook feed. I’m not sure what prompted it. I’d never heard of Mary Oliver before (mea culpa), but suddenly her name seemed to be everywhere.

I took the bait and bought Upstream, a collection of her essays. Upstream turned out to just the kind of book I like best, a blend of reflections on nature, art, literature, and life experience. It reminded me of Annie Dillard and Madeleine L’Engle and Rachel Carson, but it had an intensity and focus that was new to me. There was a sense of self-containment to Oliver’s writing. She wasn’t writing for me, or for any reader in particular. She was simply describing, with great and deliberate seriousness, what she saw, what she read, and what she knew.

I was disappointed that neither the bookstore nor the library had more collections of her essays.

They did, of course, have lots of her poetry.

Upstream had been a comfortable read. It was a genre I understood and frequently sought out. I thoroughly enjoyed those essays, but they didn’t surprise me.

Oliver’s poetry did surprise me. At the risk of being melodramatic, it shocked me. I feel foolish now saying it, but it had not occurred to me that a person could write poetry about such ordinary things. I had not thought before that one could describe what they saw or how they felt with utter simplicity, and call it poetry. In my own writing and thinking, I tend to gravitate to the big picture. What is the meaning of it all? How does everything connect? My temptation is always to use ten words when I should use one. It’s hard for me not to turn everything into a metaphor. Mary Oliver’s poetry told me to stop. It posed the question, “What is in front of your face?” It hinted that the answers to my questions about everything lay in what was closest to me.

Her writing stance (and living stance) was one of attentiveness. She wrote that “to pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”.

Her writings about attentiveness are frequently cited by advocates of mindfulness. It has helped me to think of this attentiveness as a way of taking one’s own life seriously. What does it mean to take the flight of a bird, or the stretch of a dog, seriously enough to write it down? What does it mean to take one’s life seriously enough to write about it not as autobiography, but simply as observation? I saw something. I heard something. I thought something. I felt something. This kind of seriousness about one’s life is startling for what it asserts about the value of our lives. If every moment of our lives is worth writing about, then maybe our lives really do have infinite value.

In the writing life, it’s always tempting to ask, “Who will read this? Who will want to read this? Who will even care?” We’re tempted to devalue our writing before we even begin because we’ve already devalued ourselves and our stories and our lives. It constitutes a small revolution to say to oneself, “The sun is shining on the tree outside my window today, and I am going to write that down.”

Image Attribution: Rachel Giese Brown/The Bark

Previous Post

January 6, 2019

Dark Devotional: Epiphany

Next Post

January 21, 2019 Dark Devotional: Sunday in the Chapel of Split Ends and Hangnails

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Approaching Mystery art Book Reviews Catholic Ghost Story Catholicism community Confession Current Events Dark Devotional Deconstruction Deconstruction Fellow Travelers I Want To Believe Interview Laudato Si Lent Mary Matthew's Letters Movie Reviews Music Reviews Our Charism Personal Essay Pilgrims Pope Francis Popular Piety Prayer Publishing Richard Beck Saints Satan Sheed and Ward Sick Pilgrim Charism Sick Pilgrim Chats Sick Pilgrim Events Sick Pilgrim Travelin' Medicine Show Sick Pilgrimage to The West Sick Pilgrims Small Joys Spiritual Autobiography Spooky Files of Ave Maria Magazine Spooky October Spooky Pilgrim Spooky Pilgrimage Strange Journey The Inklings Things Keeping Us Going Trying to Say God TV Reviews Uncategorized women in the Catholic Church Wonder Podcast Write the Vision

Select a Month February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: Mark records Jesus' birth narrative in Bethlehem.

Select your answer to see how you score.

TRUE FALSE