Mary Oliver

In Blue Iris, Mary Oliver collects ten new poems, two dozen of her poems written over the last two decades, and two previously unpublished essays on the beauty and wonder of plants. The poet considers roses, of course, as well as poppies and peonies; lilies and morning glories; the thick-bodied black oak and the fragrant white pine; the tall sunflower and the slender bean. “Blue Iris fortuitously offers an extended sequence and new contexts for a writer whose precise eye and instinct for surprising images have made her one of the best practitioners of the lyrical revelation . . . Oliver continues to earn applause and admiration for continuing to provide redemptive meditation and supple praises for nature in a time when so much is under threat.” —R.T. Smith, Shenandoah “Salvation, in Mary Oliver’s poems, consists of the living of a natural life, the dying of a natural death, and the ability to look clearly in both directions while keeping the two processes in balance.” —Jay Rogoff, Southern Review “Mary Oliver’s poems are natural growths out of a loam of perception and feeling, and instinctive skill with language makes them seem effortless. Reading them is a sensual delight.” —May Swenson “The gift of Oliver’s poetry is that she communicates the beauty she finds in the world and makes it unforgettable.” —Miami Herald Mary Oliver, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the National Book Award, is one of the most celebrated and best-selling poets in America. Her books include New and Selected Poems, Volume One and New and Selected Poems, Volume Two; Why I Wake Early; Owls and Other Fantasies; House of Light; Dream Work; White Pine; West Wind; The Leaf and the Cloud; and What Do We Know. She has also published five books of prose, including Blue Pastures, Rules for the Dance, and Winter Hours, and an audio, At Blackwater Pond. She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Poems and Essays

Blue Iris

maia

Will somebody or something please start to sing? 

Now that l'm free to be myself, who am I?

And my heart panics not to be, as I long to be, the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.

What I mean is, could I forget myself even in those feathery fields? When van Gogh preached to the poor of course he wanted to save someone most of all himself.

I think I will always be lonely in this world, where the cattle graze like a black and white river where the ravishing lilies melt, without protest, on their tongues where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss, just rises and floats away.

But also I say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it's done right, is a kind of holiness,palpable and redemptive. 

If you can sing, do it. If not, even silence can feel, to the world, like happiness, like praise, from the pool of shade you have found beneath the everlasting.

Never in my life had I felt so plush, or so slippery, or so resplendently empty.

In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be. 

Blue Iris quotes

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