Saturday, January 19, 2019

Prompt #331 – In Memory of Mary Oliver


 
On January 17, 2019, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Mary Oliver passed away. She was my favorite poet, one whose poems I return to again and again. My cousin Sandy Hulme gave me a copy of Mary Oliver's book Devotions for my birthday last November, and it sits with pride of place on my desk next to me as I write this. 

Although critics have been divided about her work, she has awed scores of readers with her linguistic precision and understated depth. The NY Times said that Ms. Oliver's work has an almost “homiletic quality.” I've often felt that as I read her poems, each of which is a kind of "teaching." Importantly, her poems are characterized by the simple perfection of “unadorned language” and uncompromised accessibility. Always profoundly human, she wrote with a deep sense of living in kinship with the natural world and its creatures. Ms. Oliver once described herself as “the kind of old-fashioned poet who walks the woods most days, accompanied by dog and notepad.”

The poem below is one of Ms. Oliver’s most well-known. I’d like you to read it and then to reflect on it’s meanings. Do you find anything in the poem that speaks to you personally?


Wild Geese
  By Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.


In literature, wild geese have symbolized compassion, community, bravery, communication, determination, and caring, as well as an individual path in life. In her poem, “Wild Geese,” Mary Oliver tells us that one doesn’t have to worry about being good or repentant but, rather, to truly love the life you’ve been given. She recognizes that everyone will encounter difficulties in life and that sharing those hardships with others is important. 

This poem reminds us that life goes on despite our human frailties and weaknesses; wild geese continue to follow their paths; and each of us keeps our position in the world. Like wild geese, our place in the natural world offers itself to us.

In addition to situating and illuminating what it means to be human, Ms. Oliver reminds us to keep going on despite life’s challenges, to look within ourselves, and to seek the beauty and peace of the natural world.

Ms. Oliver draws us into the divinity of the natural world. She also invites us to consider what makes a “good life.” She offers her readers a sense that the world is “…announcing your place in the family of things,” that all is as it should be. There is order in the natural world and in human experience, no matter how lonely human experience may be at times.  Whenever I read a Mary Oliver poem, I’m reminded of Julian of Norwich who wrote, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”


Suggestions:

1. Does anything in “Wild Geese” speak to you personally? If so, write down what and how.

2.  Think about your personal world and the natural world. Do they share anything in common? Do you ever turn to nature for comfort and peace?

3. Choose something in nature that you love, and think about why you love it (spring rain, the hush of snow falling, sparrows or cardinals, lilacs, a river, mountains, etc.).  Alternatively, you might consider a beloved pet or a favorite wild animal.

4. Free write for a while about that natural “something.”
 
5. In her poem “Spring,” Ms. Oliver wrote,“There is only one question; / how to love this world.” How do you love this world?

6. Now, begin a poem that matches or comes close to Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” in form:

one stanza (stichic form)
18 lines
free verse
no internal or external rhyme
7. Let your poem develop as you write it, give it its “head” and let it take you where it wants to go.

Tips:

1. When you begin writing, don’t worry about technique, spelling, punctuation, or form. Just write. There’s always time for revision and refining after you’ve written your drafts. Most importantly, get your thoughts and feelings onto the paper first.

2. If you’d prefer to read and not write, a list of Mary Oliver poems follows. Enjoy!


1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/images/_ln.gif


In her poem “When Death Comes” Ms. Oliver wrote,

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.



RIP, dear Mary Oliver! You were always more than a visitor, and I'm grateful.




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