A Thousand Mornings

Mary Oliver is incredible. Great poems, great size for travel.

Everyone should read poetry.

When I arrived home from the community Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday I noticed that I had not brought in my mail from Wednesday. I was feeling a little low, mostly from being tired and a bit from missing my family. When I opened the front door to retrieve my mail, I almost missed a slim cardboard box propped up against the house. A package from Amazon.com. Oh joy of joys! I had almost forgot that I had placed an order for Mary Oliver’s twenty-second book of poems, A Thousand Mornings. You cannot imagine my smile as I tore the box open and saw its cover. One can never feel low or lonely when there is a book of Mary Oliver poems in one’s hands. I knew I had plenty of work to finish that evening, but first things first. I opened a Flying Bison Blizzard Bock, ran a hot bath and settled in for a soak, sip and read. It is an event in my life, when a new Mary Oliver book is published. In the past so many years I have celebrated the arrivals of Evidence, Thirst, Swan, and Red Bird. I have purchased at least five copies of her New and Selected Poems because I can’t help but give them away when I meet someone who has never heard of her before. And each time I receive a new title it is my constant companion for weeks upon weeks. If you find it strange that a book of poems can be a companion, then you have not met a Mary Oliver poem yet. A Thousand Mornings is a slender volume, seventy-six pages, and yet how many hours of pleasure, contemplation and company it contains. When I read Oliver’s poems I am always transported to my own experiences. The places she unfolds in her work are so similar to my favourite places at the farm, the creatures I encounter, the plants and trees and insects, that I am immersed in that world but with an even closer view. Because this is what Mary does, illuminates the most intricate details of what she notices, and somehow brings a universal light to the profound human experience as well. Amazement. Awe. Wonder. Gratitude. Reverence. For all that lives, and also dies. I have noticed over the past several books she has published that more and more she is slipping more personal, more intimate details of her own life within the words. Mary is notoriously private, rarely gives interviews, and has often spoke of how she keeps her private and personal life out of her work, at least in a confessional way. But in A Thousand Mornings there are several poems that are intimate to her life, much more so than in any of her other works. And yet there is still nothing confessional about them, only an expansive wisdom that never says, “this is the answer,” but instead leaves only questions in the reader’s mind. Questions and a sense of amazement for the world, and tremendous comfort. Mary Oliver is a poet who honours mystery. I find immeasurable comfort in that. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Mary Oliver's collection of poems, A Thousand Mornings, published this fall, is a poignant meditation on nature and the self. It reminded me of the nature writings of Annie Dillard, the essays of Thoreau and Emerson, and the poems of Whitman and the Transcendentalists. Oliver could be an adopted poet of that movement. The poems are almost naked, sometimes abrupt, but if nature could speak, this is what she could say. Oliver is certainly awed by her surroundings, the sea, animals and the spirituality of nature. I think the best way to depict her style is to include one of her poems. I Go Down to the Shore I go down to the shore in the morning and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall-- what should I do? And the sea says in its lovely voice: Excuse me, I have work to do. I had never heard of Mary Oliver before reading this little black and grey book of poems. I felt ignorant for not having heard of her. She is one of the most renowned poets of our time, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a recipient of the National Book Award. Pithy and stark, her new collection is a quick read, but you find yourself reading each poem over and over again. They are unlike anything I've ever read, and I highly recommend them to other readers of nature and spirituality.

Every poem is a gem - this is my favorite oliver collection so far. Looking for another batch just like it

I recently discovered Mary Oliver and her poems. This book is just beautiful. Poems are heartfelt and sometimes light. I would recommend this is one of the books she would buy to introduce yourself to her poems.

It was a rare read where someone can roam the mind so fully. She knows birds...she makes them interesting bringing them to life.

Lovely! Mary Oliver is the bomb.

Great product

I love Mary Oliver poems, It's so beautiful in each word.

Book was liked by Child to whom presented.

lovely thoughtful and accessible. Makes a wonderful gift for someone needing encouragement

Mary Oliver never disappoints.