Back to Basics

I went to the book store and I picked up a book of poetry. I needed a real tangible book. Something with texture that I could hold in my hands, something that could ground me. A book to remind me that I am real and not just in a commodified simulation.

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets, though, to be honest, I haven’t read a lot of her work. I was first captivated by her poem “The Summer Day” about a cricket landing in her hand. I was transfixed by her observant description of the grasshopper’s movements and jaws. Oliver goes on to describe the grasshopper in vivid detail, marveling at its existence:

“Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.”

Oliver, Mary. “The Summer Day”. House of Light. 1990. Beacon Press.

Her ability to vividly paint nature scenes made me fall in love with her writing. In fact, Oliver has a transcendent way of portraying nature. “The Summer Day” is an iconic work that beautifully captures her gift for finding profundity and inspiration in commonplace observations of the natural world around us. Her ability to transform a simple encounter with an insect into a profound meditation on life itself is what makes her poetry so moving and memorable.

I’m particularly fond of the lines “what will you do with your own precious life” from “The Summer Day” and her well-known famous and beloved poem, “Wild Geese”. In it, she describes watching a flock of geese passing overhead and uses their migratory journey as a metaphor for finding one’s own way in life.

Other than those two poems, introduced to me in my poetry courses, and her book Dog Songs, an ode to dogs, I have never read any of her other work. Yet, I claim she is one of my favorite poets. I once listened to Oliver’s interview on On Being with Kristen Tippett, sometime after she passed away in 2019. It is a lovely interview, and I recommend you listen to it. If you don’t know On Being, I also highly, highly recommend adding her podcast to your listening list.

Blue Iris Poems and Essays

Recently, I picked up her book “Blue Iris” which contains 10 poems from 2004 and two dozen poems written over the prior two decades, along with two unpublished essays about the beauty of plants. The book was published by Beacon Press in 2004. The cover features the stunning painting “Irises” by Vincent Van Gogh reprinted courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of art.

As spring emerges in Maine where I live now, I’ve been photographing the blooming plants – which makes me appreciate Oliver’s poetic celebrations of nature even more. The poems in this collection have titles like “Morning Glories”, “Sunflowers”, “Goldenrod”, and the names of other flowers, plants and trees. The book is the perfect companion to my walks in the budding spring of Maine. It isn’t Provincetown, but it isn’t far from there either.

Future Posts

As I attempt to navigate this world of algorithms, I find my creativity is draining. It is impossible to compete in this once open, but now extremely competitive world of the internet. It isn’t just me. When I did a search for Mary Oliver and her poetry, specifically her poem,”Morning Glories” it was very difficult for me to find analyses on the poem. Even poetry blogs that once popped up in my Google search are no longer showing. I can’t seem to properly share my work to social media any longer either. My links will no longer show images, and as we all know, if you don’t have an image no one will click the link. I never had many views in the past, but in recent weeks all of my blogs have dropped to zero. Chances are you, reader will never even make it to this sentence. Is the internet killing poetry? Is it killing art? If it doesn’t make money does that mean it isn’t worth reading? Poetry, poetry, poetry. I went to Ubersuggest for a keyword search for this blog and it gave me poetry. This of course is an essay. A rant? A plea. An expiration.

I feel defeated. I find little inspiration in writing words that will never be read, sharing photographs that will never be seen. I’m bored with reading about SEO and Marketing tools. It’s like working without getting paid or studying without receiving a grade.

Perhaps, since my soul is devoid of my own words, I will spend sometime reading these poems and sharing my thoughts with you or maybe not with you. Apparently, I’m not sharing with anyone. Hopefully, Mary Oliver, the fresh air, and walks in nature will help me return to writing my own poetry. It’s either that or give up on sharing. Notice, I didn’t say give up on writing poetry. That’s a good thing. Screw the world, right. I don’t think that is something Mary Oliver would say, but let me read more of her poems and find out.

Are you a fan of Mary Oliver? Are you finding new obstacles with googles algorithm changes. Do you think art and poetry will die out in this phase of the internet?