Dream Work
By Mary Oliver
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems, follows Mary Oliver’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry volume American Primitive. The deep perceptual awareness on display in that collection is all the more radiant and steadfast here. With this new collection, Oliver has turned her attention to the solitary and difficult labors of the spirit–to accepting the truth about one’s personal world, and to valuing the triumphs while transcending the failures of human relationships.
Oliver brings grace and empathy to the painful legacies of history, whether by way of inheritance–as in her poem about the Holocaust–-or through a glimpse into the realities of present–as in her poem about an injured boy begging in the streets of Indonesia. And yet, Oliver’s willingness to find light, humanity, and joy continues, deepened by self-awareness, by experience, and by choice.
Editor's Note
In memoriam…
Mary Oliver’s simple, lovely poems made her one of her generation’s most admired poets. Perpetually approachable and deeply resonant, her poems continue to comfort readers following her passing.
Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver (1935–2019), one of the most popular and widely honored poets in the U.S., was the author of more than thirty books of poetry and prose. Over the course of her long and illustrious career, she received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for American Primitive in 1984. Oliver also received the Shelley Memorial Award; a Guggenheim Fellowship; an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Achievement Award; the Christopher Award and the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award for House of Light; the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems; a Lannan Foundation Literary Award; and the New England Booksellers Association Award for Literary Excellence. She lived most of her life in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Read more from Mary Oliver
Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Dream Work
165 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beautiful collection of poem that dip into the Oliver personal association with the world around her and with her writing process. She often uses nature to relation to the spiritual or the emotional, drawing out from a deer walking by or sunflowers in a field a deeper meaning about being alive. And then again, sometimes a hawk is just a hawk and a primrose is just a primrose, and its enough to take in their beauty for just a little while.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the very few poetry books I have read from cover to cover. Each one a treasure. Thank you, Madame Oliver.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I started this book before the news that Mary Oliver had passed away, so reading these poems have been bittersweet.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I am brand new to reading Mary Oliver. This was a lovely place to start.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I like Mary Oliver's poetry but for some reason, I found that many of the poems in this volume, especially at the beginning, didn't speak to me. On the whole, I liked the second part of the book best; these poems were more nature-centered. That being said, poetry for me is very sensitive to my mood so it may be that I would love these poems at some different time.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5excellent, highly recommend, 10/10, read this book if you want to be amazed delighted frightened et cetera
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a great, small collection of poetry that won the Pulitzer back in the day. Oliver manages to convey much, and variate her style and meaning, depending on the context and the larger idea of her individual poems. There is much to like here, from the longings to the images and even towards the appeals for greater sanctity. This is not a collection to be missed- it deserves acclaim.4.25 stars.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everyone could benefit from reading a little more poetry. Not every poem landed with me, but I'd be reading along and--BAM--two lines would just hit me and make me think about how I interact with the world and myself. Worth it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5School taught me how to read and understand poetry, but it didn't teach me how to enjoy poetry. So when I picked up this book that a friend recommended, it was more out of curiosity than any expectation of enjoyment. To my utter surprise, I found these poems a pleasure to read. They're more accessible than many of the famous poems I've tried reading over the years. You don't get bogged down trying to decipher obscure words and convoluted sentence structure. Instead, you’re free to explore the meaning of the poems, which are thought provoking, intimate, and beautifully vivid. Some poems invite deeper analysis; others just float through my mind and allow me to find my own meaning. If you think you don't like poetry, Dream Work may change your mind. For me, this book was a revelation. I can't wait to discover more amazing poets like Mary Oliver.
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Book preview
Dream Work - Mary Oliver
I
DOGFISH
Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around.
Black as a fisherman’s boot,
with a white belly.
If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile
under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin,
which was rough
as a thousand sharpened nails.
And you know
what a smile means,
don’t you?
I wanted
the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,
whoever I was, I was
alive
for a little while.
It was evening, and no longer summer.
Three small fish, I don’t know what they were,
huddled in the highest ripples
as it came swimming in again, effortless, the whole body
one gesture, one black sleeve
that could fit easily around
the bodies of three small fish.
Also I wanted
to be able to love. And we all know
how that one goes,
don’t we?
Slowly
the dogfish tore open the soft basins of water.
You don’t want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen
to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.
And anyway it’s the same old story —
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.
Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.
And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.
And look! look! look! I think those little fish
better wake up and dash themselves away
from the hopeless future that is
bulging toward them.
And probably,
if they don’t waste time
looking for an easier world,
they can do it.
MORNING