August

Mary Oliver's poem "August" is on The Writer's Almanac today. Click here to read the poem.

Breakage

Click here to read "Breakage" by Mary Oliver which appeared in Poetry (August 2003).

Thank you for your words

Dear Reader,


Submissions are now closed for this blog. Thank you to the many readers of Oliver's work who have sent their notes and made this site possible. We, too, are grateful for Oliver's work, which has graced our lives.


All best,
Julie Brooks Barbour and Julie L. Moore
Editors

The Sparkling Dance

Dear Mary,

I want to say that I read your words, about loving the world and gratitude, about joyful days and good rain, and morning light and chats. I see the good in love and the sparkling dance for the world that you reveal and encourage. I sense your joy at birds in thorn thick bushes, always singing. I have dared to be happy in a pure white moment, and always start the day in happiness and kindness. I live on a good patch of this green earth, and know now that everything has his reasons, and our task is to love what is lovely.  I want to say that I love your words filled with gratitude and magical places. I love your cool and beautiful words, when said right allows the heart to bear it. And it does. Stand wherever you are, Mary Oliver, feel the rain rising, and be blessed.

Peter Schramm

A Solid Path

Dear Mary,

Thank you for each nurturing "nature bite" I take from your evocative poems. They swell my soul.

Thank you especially for "The Journey." That poem is frequently shared during 12 step recovery groups for women finding their way out from under abusive relationships. In my case, it was after the traumatic discovery of my spouse's betrayals. Initially, my only concern was how to help him, thinking that healing him would save and heal my family. Your poem, The Journey, opened my eyes and started me on a solid path of recovery and rebirth.

Thank you from the bottom of my healing heart. 

Judy Whelley

Whenever I See A Turtle

Dear Mary,

I’m a Vermont poet. I love your poetry and have a number of your books. Your “Turtle” poem in House of Light is one of my favorites.

I have written this poem for you.

Whenever I See a Turtle

            —for Mary Oliver

Whenever I see a turtle

I’m reminded to slow down.

What’s the rush?  True friends will wait,
will understand, will help.

Miss. Harris, my junior high math teacher,
frequently said to the class (or was it just to me?):

Patience is a virtue.

It’s funny how you remember things like that,
several decades later.

Turtles are assuredly patient. They like
sitting on a rock as they soak in the sun.

You never see them sprinting across a street.
Perhaps they are hopeful that a good Samaritan
will give them a helping hand
and bring them to safety.

I say, Forget the eye of the tiger. We should pay
closer attention to the eye of the turtle.

            Jerry Johnson

Your Words

Dear Mary,

Your words have mattered. Thank you so much.

Namaste.

Maryanne Stahl

When I Need a Push to Wake Up

Dear Mary,

It was eight years ago that a friend introduced me to "Wild Geese." I was hooked on the spot and remain an ardent and daily reader of your exquisite, uplifting, and challenging words. I memorize and recite your poems for the sheer joy of it and I begin each day in search of a serious response to your big question: "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?" 

You have opened my eyes to the beauty of the Canadian Prairies, where I live. Your gentle reminders to pay attention, to be astonished, and to feel gratitude have enriched my life beyond any telling of it. At times of sadness, your words bring comfort, when I need a push to wake up, your words do that. 

A particular thrill is to commit a favourite poem to memory, with patience and care so that there settles in my mind a perfect copy of a Mary Oliver creation - every word, dash and comma in its place. Just as you intended.

With every good wish for a full recovery,

Denise Ommanney

No Flame, but Word

Dear Mary,

No flame, but word. No hesitation, but wish.
Maybe false spoken because of foreign tongue.
A friend of mine wishes you well, so do I.
Your inspiration leads to thanks, so I bow mine.

Don't know you, just your words. But even though
I feel a kind soul, I want to keep fighting.
Please hear the weird sound of my imagination.

The wild tippering feet of the wolves guarding your ground.
The nervous flight of the hawks, watching the sky.
The calm grind of the mole, searching the deep.

Let them be, make them yours, give them names.
For those send shall be yours to be.
A present of my imagination, inspired by your words.

May my words be a mirror for your kindness.
May my wishes be a cure for your worst.


Sinaris

Longing for Home

Dear Mary Oliver,

I first learned of you through another luminescent poet, my teacher, Lucille Clifton.  She suggested I read some of your poetry.  I was a displaced Wisconsinite in New York City and all I could write about were longings for home and the connections I felt to the natural world there.  When I first opened "White Pine," I was so happy.  Among the bricks and buildings, the sparkling sidewalks and busy streets of my temporary Manhattan landscape, I found comfort.  Your poetry has illuminated so many moments in my life.  I am grateful for having your company and insight these past 25 years. Connections with friends and students have grown stronger because of the truths you have always bravely spoken.  My partner and I also love that your books are always dedicated to Molly Malone Cook.  We light candles for you in Madison, Wisconsin and send love and gratitude your way. 

Thank you for being,

Mo O'Connor

Showing the Way

Dear Mary, 

You have been for me such a teacher,  showing the way in loving our world and paying deep attention to her beauty.  My gratitude is huge. 

So many favourites!  I pick up your slim volumes to read a little daily.  Today it is "Messenger" and your shouts of joy to the moth, the wren and the sleepy dug-up clam, "telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever."

Thank you for sharing your enormous heart with us all.

Jennifer Conkie

I Fell Into Your Words

Dear Mary,

I discovered you through a New York Times article during a recent summer lost to pneumonia recovery.  I fell into your words which captured my love of clouds and water, birds and dogs, God's creation spread before my beloved lake house.

Through the years I have written various things, but now in my 78th year, you have given me courage to  attempt to put something of my head and heart into verse!  This has brought me great joy.  I am a retired United Methodist pastor, and I pray for your steady recovery... and for your next book.  

Patsy Brundige

The Spirit of Your Work Watching Over Us

Dear Mary,

I was your neighbor, so to speak, for seven months in Provincetown, as a Fine Arts Work Center Fellow. We never met -- it was made clear to us that we were not to knock on your door -- but I liked to think of you as near during those months, and of the spirit of your work as watching over us, of subtly guiding us toward the better, truer answers. 

I was working on a novel, but on the side I was crafting a series of creative-writing textbooks for middle-school and high-school students. So much of "A Poetry Handbook" was indispensable for the creation of the poetry sections of those volumes; pages 24-28, your sound breakdown of "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening," especially, was so wise and penetrating that it remains in my mind quite closely even now, a year later. I was doing the series for a small publishing house, our budget for permissions fees very modest, but I had to include one of your poems, just so the kids could see what it's all about. I settled on "In Praise of Craziness, of a Certain Kind." I couldn't think of a better way for a 15-year-old to get a first taste of what poetry should be.

Thanks for all the impact you have had on so many lives.

Warm regards and great admiration,
Boris Fishman

The Many Different Names We Call Things

Dear Mary,

Hello from the Philippines. I hope this note finds you in good spirits.

I just want you to know that even here, half a world away, your poems have changed lives. Every pond has a little of Blackwater pond in it now; every bird has in it a wild goose always "announcing my place in the family of things." Meaning, I guess, that you've made me-- us, your readers from here-- that much more aware of what poetry can do. A bit more loving of the mortal. And every time I re-read your work, I learn more about patience, about clear-sightedness, and how truly and simply connected we all are, despite distance and the many different names we call things.

Thank you for this, Mary.

Yours,

Mikael de Lara Co

Dance Our Way Home

Dear Mary,

I want to tell you how much your beautiful poetry has touched my life, and my clients. I have a spiritual dance practice for women,"'Dance Our Way Hom"', where a sacred and safe space is created to explore our deeper, more soul-reaching places within for healing and celebration. Your poems have been a part of the inspiration used in these sacred circles of women. Lines like this one from "Wild Geese"-  "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves", is especially perfect for this embodied work. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being who you are and sharing your gifts with the world.  

Blessings, 
Erica Ross 

Your Words Spoke Directly to the Deepest Part of Me

Dear Mary,

Four volumes of your poetry sit on my desk along with a few other writers whose work inspires me and opens up my heart.

I came to know your poetry only in the last few years.  I was at a writer's conference in Taos, NM with Natalie Goldberg. I was talking with a fellow writer and she told me about you.  She gave me a volume of your poetry to read.  I took it to my room and read through most of it that night.  It was as though you had known me all my life and your words spoke directly to the deepest part of me. 

Two of your poems that impacted me are "The Journey," which I use a quote from on my website home page.  Another is "When Death Comes":

"When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom taking the world into my arms. 

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, 

or full of argument

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."

Thank you for choosing the simple life that has allowed you the time and inspiration to produce so much beauty.  Your poetry will always be beloved.  I will always hold you in my heart, your words timeless reminders to live my life to the fullest.

Paula Todd King

In Black and White

Dear Mary,


Whenever my mind seems too cluttered, or my health too fragile; when my emotions are over-bursting with passion; when the world is too dark, or the world is too wonderful to exist; all these times I turn to your poetry. No matter what my situation, you and your senses have already taken it in and placed it simply and skillfully in black and white, so that after reading I can breathe and go on anew. You have time and again cut to the heart of what's what and also taken me away from what's what to what really matters. I have become a better observer, perhaps a slightly better writer, by having the good luck to encounter you, a modern day female poet who has dared to say, "it's OK to be who you must be." Thank you, thank you, thank you for the many deep lessons of human and natural life you've shared so openly, so bravely. I wish I was able to do more than cover you with blessings for courage, optimism, patience and grace as you face life's challenges, now and always.

Sharon Willen

The Clean, Harsh Beauty Found Out of Doors

Dear Mary,

I am a farmer and a lover of nature.  It is my salvation.  I spend my days, alone mostly, rapt in the clean, harsh beauty found out of doors.  I could never describe the swelling I feel in my soul.. the things I hear in the wind... or feel in the soil ... but you can.  

You articulate so perfectly the great mystery.  Your words are a salve.  You comfort me and bring to me the very breath of what I love and fear. You find the beauty in the dark and difficult and in the light that surrounds it.  

The first poem I read was Wild Geese and so began the journey.

Thank you, Mary.  I am so blessed to have found your words.  

Sincerely,
Patty Gentry

Artwork by Vernessa Riley Foelix

Following are images of porcelain disks that use the poems of Mary Oliver.

Artist: Vernessa Riley Foelix. 

Deeply Touching Me and So Many Others

Dear Mary,

Like so many others I have been greatly blessed by your poetry. Nearly twenty years ago I was given New and Selected Poems as a Christmas gift, just three months after my wife of 22 years passed. I came to page 10, "When Death Comes", and read it every day for quite a while, almost as a devotional. Ever since, your poetry has continued to feed and nurture my spirit. A years later, when I fell in love again, and joyfully remarried, my wife and I jointly recited "The Ponds" as a part of our wedding ceremony. I am grateful to you for deeply touching me and so many others.

Rob Soley