Review of Mary Oliver's Poetry

By simply reading the titles of Mary Oliver’s poems you can see how she connects with nature, not only nature its self but with the characteristics of nature such as animals and seasons. Mary Oliver’s poems are titled after an animal with a characteristic of nature for instance ‘Turtle’, ‘Black Snake’, ‘The Snow Cricket’ and so on. Her main focus is nature and everything involved with nature. She portrays nature’s characteristics with personification, metaphors, similes, and symbols to describe the way she sees things as well as her feelings by describing them through poetry. I think that she connects to nature by giving life to these characteristics of nature such as trees, leaves, and describing them with human characteristics. Eco-criticism was shown in each of these poems Oliver describes both characteristics of nature and humans, she puts them together which I think she does this with the purpose to show the reader the link that there is between humans and nature and the importance of it as well. She uses the animals to describe humans and from the way that they think and act.

When reading the poem ‘Ghost’ right at the beginning she gives the animal the characteristics of a beast to refer to humans Mary Oliver mentions: “Where so many millions of powerful bawling beasts/ lay down on the earth and die/ it is hard to tell now/ what’s bone, and what merely/ was once” (Stands 2, Line 2-6). I personally see this as her referring to people with power in the society/ government because of the words that she uses. She describes these ‘beasts’ as “powerful bawling beast”. The rest of the stand makes me realize that what she is trying to say is that when we die it doesn’t matter the power that we held or how important we were because at the end when we are 6ft underground we won’t even be recognizable. The title that she gives this poem ‘Ghost’ also has to do with nature. If we look closely, it is common to connect spirituality with nature many people tend to make a connection between these two. Throughout this whole poem she gives animals the description of humans later in the poem, she mentions a birth of an animal and she describes the animal giving birth “with the tenderness of a woman,/ a cow gives birth” (Stands 7, Lines 56). I think that she is trying to let us see how it does not matter whether it is an animal or human who is giving birth they have that maternal instinct and the tenderness to care for their child. By giving us this point of view, we are able to see how humans as well as animals go through the same cycles of life such as death and birth.

The speaker gives us a clear perspective of how we should consider nature, and she describes it as kingdoms, in the poem ‘Other Kingdoms’ which is a small quote she describes how each characterization of nature should be looked upon as kingdoms. The speaker gives an example and describes the trees as if they have their own kingdom. I can see how she sees each character whether it is an animal or a characteristic as a kingdom. For instance, Mary Oliver mentions: “Consider the other kingdoms./ the trees, for example,/with their mellow-surroundings/titles: oak, aspen, willow” (Lines 1-3). According to my understanding these are types of trees, this helps me to visualize all types of flowers as another kingdom as well as animals, rocks, rivers, creeks, etc., as their own kingdoms. In a way, Mary Oliver is letting us see nature is a kingdom in the middle of other kingdoms.

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The third poem I would like to talk about is called ‘The Meeting’. I had to read this poem twice because I did not understand it, but after re-reading it I came to the conclusion that this poem is based on an animal giving birth. The speaker describes how it is time for this animal to give birth and refers to the baby as a “creature” (Line 8) which lets us know that the speaker is referring to an animal. Mary Oliver also mentions: “The secret slippery package/ drops into the weeds” (Lines 3-4) this gives us the idea that it is an animal in the wild. I personally believe that the speaker is referring to a giraffe, because of how she describes the characteristics of the animal. Marly Oliver mentions: “She leans her long neck and tongues it/ between slack with exhaustion” (Lines 5-6). Going based on the description I think that Oliver is referring to a giraffe. We can see in this poem how Oliver uses words as “package” (Line 3) which has nothing to do with nature but that sword symbolizes the “creature” (Line 8) in the mother’s womb. I think that this poem is based on symbolism the description of the poem is a symbol of what a mother goes through while giving birth Oliver, later on, describes the animal as a woman Oliver mentions: “She is the most beautiful woman/ I have ever seen” (Lines 15-16). Obviously here the speaker is referring to the animal with human characteristics. I personally think that she is referring to the animal, not a human that gave birth in the middle of weeds because logistically speaking that is quite dangerous for a human mother as for the child. As I mentioned before Oliver lets the reader see how animals and humans are somewhat alike, these two species go through events in life that mark our entrance into this world and our goodbye as we head out of it.

As I went along reading Mary Oliver’s poems, I was able to see that she is obsessed with the fact that animals resemble characteristics as humans for instance speaking. In the poem ‘Coyote in the Dark, Coyote Remembered’, Oliver describes the scene that she is in by using the word “autumn” (Line 8) which is another word for fall. The speaker describes how she came across a coyote and the speaker describes a coyote as a scary creature Oliver describes it as “the darkest thing” (Line 1) with “a brace of teeth” (Line 4). The speaker describes this animal as something scary a dangerous creature but the speaker then mentions “to be granted this secret/ that the coyotes, walking together/ can talk together/ for I thought, what else could it be?” (Lines 14-17). Oliver believed that the coyotes were talking together which obviously it is not possible but we could also see how the speaker uses her imagination and even though later on, she realizes that it was two women who were walking in the forest she is mesmerized as to the fact that what if coyotes could speak.

The speaker also uses similes in her poems and we are able to see this in the poem ‘Carrying the Snake to the Garden’ at the beginning of the poem where Oliver writes: “It coiled itself in a corner and watched me with eyes like two little stars” (Lines 5-8). Here we could see how the speaker refers to the snake’s eyes as little stars which let us as readers visualize that the eyes of the snake must be small and bright. The way that we could tell this is a simile is by the speaker using the word like because she is describing the characteristics of the snake in a way that we could use imagery to see what the speaker is talking about. The speaker then moves on to describe the snake, which Oliver describes as “like a running shoelace” (Line 15). By the words that the speaker uses we could imagine the snake as a shoelace and the movement that the snake does as the speaker tries to get ahold of it to take it outside. She also uses a metaphor and gives the snake the characteristics of a river Oliver mentions “it was going to flow/up my leg” (Lines 31-32). This shows us how she transcends her metaphors, similes, personifications, and symbols to nature she uses its characteristics to allow us to also make and visualize the connection that she is making with nature.

I personally loved the poems the way she used the personifications, similes, and metaphors helped me to take a picture of each poem. For instance, in the poem about the coyote, I could imagine her in the entrance of a forest with the wind blowing and all different colored leaves swirling around in the dark. I can see how by the words that she used she was quite terrified but when she hears whispers and believes that the coyotes are speaking it seems that all of the fear that she felt when away. I took this part of the poem quite personally because I took it as how we as humans tend to always assume things just by hearing. For instance, since she had just seen a coyote and right after heart chattering, she assumed it was the coyote. Also, another thing that I loved about her poems is the connection between humans and animals that she shows. It was quite interesting to see how Oliver describes the birth of an animal in the poem ‘The Meeting’. Not only that but it got me thinking how animals go through the same process as humans although there are some animals who do not carry their baby for 9 months, but we still tend to go through the same process. I like how Mary Oliver uses nature and animals to describe scenarios or experiences and in a way she mixes the experience of a human and animal who is going through the same process as I mentioned about the animal giving birth and at the end makes it one. I also like her intake and her point of view on how everything in a forest is its own kingdom. I take that as her letting the reader know that we are all different we each are our own kingdom in this world. I like how overall she uses nature and animals to relate to humans. It is quite interesting how she was able to tie up these three characteristics and write about them. Normally the poems that I read the speakers use animal or nature characteristics to describe humans or a scene but Mary Oliver did the complete opposite! I personally thought it was quite interesting the way she expressed herself. What I also liked was how some of the poems do not have a rhythm but the words itself still make the poems have a deeper meaning I truly enjoyed reading her poems and they also inspired me.