Upstream: Selected Essays

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I enjoyed some more than others, purely because I had more interest in the topics discussed, rather than some being of weaker constitution than others. All had a transcendent and divine tone to them that felt like meditation in the written form. The essays concerning natural elements were of particular evocative delight. There are keen insights into the natural world, animals and literary masters that inspired her poetry. I was expecting more about poetry but am happy to report that there's more about nature. I'm also happy to report that it's not JUST nature MO goes on and on about. Some essay collections are one-note Sally's, but this nicely mixed Annie Dillard-style nature pieces with essays on writers Oliver loves such as Ralph, Waldo, and Emerson (a literary firm from Concord, MA), Edgar, Allan, and Poe (ditto from a Baltimore gutter, alas), and Walt NMN Whitman. Throw in Wordsworth from Jolly Olde and you have four heavyweights for MO to analyze at her leisure and yours. Once I put my face against the body of our cat as she lay with her kittens, and she did not seem to mind. So I pursed my lips against that full moon, and I tasted the rich river of her body."

Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver | Goodreads

So begins Upstream, a collection of essays in which revered poet Mary Oliver reflects on her willingness, as a young child and as an adult, to lose herself within the beauty and mysteries of both the natural world and the world of literature. Emphasizing the significance of her childhood friend Walt Whitman, through whose work she first understood that a poem is a temple, a place to enter, and in which to feel, and who encouraged her to vanish into the world of her writing, Oliver meditates on the forces that allowed her to create a life for herself out of work and love. As she writes, I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple. Folks, I love nature, but I love it the way E.B. White loved it, the way that Larry McMurtry and his characters love nature. As in. . . Damn, would you just look at that view?!The strongest moments include her musing obsession with the great poets and the artist’s life. Her brief analysis of Poe and Whitman are noteworthy. Literary criticism segues into nature writing, and sometimes both thanks to her love for the great Henry David Thoreau. These essays span a long career from the ‘90s to early ‘10s but the timeless subjects keep it feeling fresh. I've discovered a kindred spirit in Mary, and felt like she was speaking to me alone while I read. To read about a renowned poet who shares similar thoughts and dreams as my own was a comfort I never knew I was looking for. This book and Mary herself has given me hope, in my dreams, and in the possibilities of the world.

Upstream: Selected Essays - Mary Oliver - Google Books Upstream: Selected Essays - Mary Oliver - Google Books

Rebecca Solnit, in her beautiful meditation on the life-saving vanishing act of reading, wrote: “I disappeared into books when I was very young, disappeared into them like someone running into the woods.” Oliver disappeared into both. For her, the woods were not a metaphor but a locale of self-salvation — she found respite from the brutality of the real world in the benediction of two parallel sacred worlds: nature and literature. She vanished into the woods, where she found “beauty and interest and mystery,” and she vanished into books. In a sentiment that calls to mind Kafka’s unforgettable assertion that “a book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us,” Oliver writes: I, too, turn into a dramatic sigh-swoon loser who reads Mary Oliver whenever my brain starts to get glitchy. She wraps my head in bandages and keeps it from falling off; burdens it with the sublime as well as the common. She lightens the incessant, violent clash between my mind and the impossible stillness it demands of my motion encased body whenever I read or write. there's a before and after reading this both in terms of connecting to myself and encouraging me to make attempts to connect to everything outside of myself too. lot of clarity, really affecting, immediately applicable. With an eye to how the enlivening power of this “passion for work” slowly and steadily superseded the deadening weight of her circumstances, Oliver issues an incantation almost as a note to herself whispered into the margins:Mary Oliver can do no wrong in her poetry. She is one of my favorite voices, reflecting on nature, reflecting on relationships. She is happy to live a life that isn't well-traveled, but rather one that notices, that breathes. So, after a few of these. . . "open mouthed" expressions of nature devotion, I came to these lines (dear God, please let someone be reading this review right now, because I need some hand holding here): Among them was the poet Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935–January 17, 2019), who recounts the redemptive refuge of reading and writing in her essay “Staying Alive,” found in Upstream: Selected Essays ( public library) — the radiant collection of reflections that gave us Oliver on the artist’s task and the central commitment of the creative life. Mary Oliver Partial to Bitcoin? You can beam some bit-love my way: 197usDS6AsL9wDKxtGM6xaWjmR5ejgqem7 CANCEL MONTHLY SUPPORT

Mary Oliver Quotes (Author of A Thousand Mornings) - Goodreads Mary Oliver Quotes (Author of A Thousand Mornings) - Goodreads

Oliver's essays on Whitman, Emerson, and Poe are insightful pieces that were immensely enjoyable to read. They offer perspective and interpretation on both each author's work and the motivation behind it. I would eagerly recommend Oliver's essays as strong companion pieces to experiencing and/or revisiting each author in turn. Oliver illumines wonderful points about these specific authors as well as literature as a whole. As with the assertion, from her "Emerson: An Introduction," that Upstream was published by Penguin Press in 2016 and I was able to read it thanks to my local library system.You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life. One of her most compelling essays is the one in which she took care of an injured gull in her home, including the surprising moments of exhilaration and fun together.