Mary Oliver

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. So begins "Upstream," a collection of essays in which beloved 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. "Upstream," a radiant collection of essays with a new piece on Provincetown, follows Oliver as she contemplates the pleasure of artistic labor, her boundless curiosity for the flora and fauna that surround her, and the responsibility she has inherited from Shelley, Wordsworth, Emerson, Poe, and Frost, the great thinkers and writers of the past, to live thoughtfully, intelligently, and to observe with passion. Throughout this collection, Oliver positions not just herself upstream but us as well as she encourages us all to keep moving, to lose ourselves in the awe of the unknown, and to give power and time to the creative and whimsical urges that live within us."

Selected Essays

Upstream

開花

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.

Karolina

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love, and the ability to ask questions. Which are, at the same time, time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

A collection of essays from the beloved Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times-bestselling author encourages readers to keep moving, to lose themselves in the awe of the unknown, and to give power and time to the creative and whimsical urges that live within.

Laura Mei

You must not ever stop being whimsical. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳, 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦. I don't mean it's easy or assured; there are the stubborn stumps of shame, grief that remains unsolvable after all the years, a bag of stones that goes with one wherever one goes and however the hour may call for dancing and for light feet. But there is, also, the summoning world, the admirable energies of the world, better than anger, better than bitterness and, because more interesting, more alleviating. And there is the thing that one does, the needle one plies, the work, and within that work a chance to take thoughts that are hot and formless and to place them slowly and with meticulous effort into some shapely heat-retaining form, even as the gods, or nature, or the soundless wheels of time have made forms all across the soft, curved universe — that is to say, having chosen to claim my life, I have made for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life.

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. Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn't choose them, I don't fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don't keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.

“I don’t think I am old yet, or done with growing. But my perspective has altered—I am less hungry for the busyness of the body, more interested in the tricks of the mind. I am gaining, also, a new affection for wood that is useless, that has been tossed out, that merely exists, quietly, wherever it has ended up. Planks on the beach rippled and salt-soaked. Pieces of piling, full of the tunnels of shipworm. In the woods, fallen branches of oak, of maple, of the dear, wind-worn pines. They lie on the ground and do nothing. They are travelers on the way to oblivion.”

“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.”

“The fetch of his breath and the fetch of his ambition began on the shores of this loneliness.”

andrea valentina 

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. Attention is the beginning of devotion.

Francesca 

And we might, in our lives, have many thresholds, many houses to walk out from and view the stars, or to turn and go back to for warmth and company. But the real one - the actual house not of beams and nails but of existence itself - is all of earth, with no door, no address separate from oceans or stars, of from pleasure or wretchedness either, or hope, or weakness, or greed.

How could these makers of so many books that have given so much to my life- how could they possibly strangers?

Certainly there is within each of us a self that is neither a child, nor a servant of the hours. It is a third self, occasional in some of us, tyrant in others. This self is out of love with the ordinary; it is out of love with time. It has hunger for eternity.

[…] having chosen to claim my life, I have made for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life. 

Ellen Scott

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. 

You must never stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

isabellaargote

ella

I am, myself, three selves at least. To begin with, there is the child I was. Certainly I am not that child anymore! Yet, distantly, or sometimes not so distantly, I can hear that child's voice — I can feel its hope, or its distress. It has not vanished. Powerful, egotistical, insinuating — its presence rises, in memory, or from the steamy river of dreams. It is not gone, not by a long shot. It is with me in the present hour. It will be with me in the grave. 

Doesn't anybody in the world anymore want to get up in the middle of the night and sing?

maia

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love, and the ability to ask questions. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us. 

abi a

ℰ.

But first and foremost, I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple—or a green field—a place to enter, and which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an intellectual thing—an artifact, a moment of seemly and robust wordiness—wonderful as that part of it is. I learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but to speak— to be company. It was everything that was needed, when everything was needed.

erin alise 

I am new to Mary Oliver and had my own preconceived notions about her work. Having previously read 

 to take a similar approach—but I was proven wrong in so many ways. At first, I thought starting with 

 was a mistake. I felt as though I were standing in the middle of something important, yet struggling to grasp its shape or direction. To my surprise, her writing began to resemble a song—one where you’re unsure whether to sing along, yet it moves you so deeply that even without knowing the lyrics, you find yourself humming along in your heart. It became a meaningful experience after I allowed her words to truly settle, circulating them through my mind over and over until I came to admire how she articulates her thoughts, especially in her reviews of great poets. She doesn’t merely analyze their works; she makes you crave them, urging you to reach for those books and immerse yourself in the very words that shaped her. The grandeur of her language feels almost like a mantra; not something you have spoken yourself, yet it sparks a quiet longing to recite it and to make it your own. As the book progresses, her prose becomes spellbinding. It feels like floating among the clouds, seeing the earth through the sharp gaze of an eagle—not just observing the world in breathtaking detail but dissolving into it, becoming one with the landscape and its creatures. 

And in that moment, you remember: you are both an observer and a part of it all.

🏹

I am new to Mary Oliver and had my own preconceived notions about her work. Having previously read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, I expected Upstream to take a similar approach—but I was proven wrong in so many ways. At first, I thought starting with Upstream was a mistake. I felt as though I were standing in the middle of something important, yet struggling to grasp its shape or direction. To my surprise, her writing began to resemble a song—one where you’re unsure whether to sing along, yet it moves you so deeply that even without knowing the lyrics, you find yourself humming along in your heart. It became a meaningful experience after I allowed her words to truly settle, circulating them through my mind over and over until I came to admire how she articulates her thoughts, especially in her reviews of great poets. She doesn’t merely analyze their works; she makes you crave them, urging you to reach for those books and immerse yourself in the very words that shaped her. The grandeur of her language feels almost like a mantra; not something you have spoken yourself, yet it sparks a quiet longing to recite it and to make it your own. As the book progresses, her prose becomes spellbinding. It feels like floating among the clouds, seeing the earth through the sharp gaze of an eagle—not just observing the world in breathtaking detail but dissolving into it, becoming one with the landscape and its creatures. And in that moment, you remember: you are both an observer and a part of it all.

this was my first experience with mary oliver and it will not be my last! such beautiful writing, i can’t count how many times i cried

༺ kat ༻

mary oliver’s economy of language is absolutely insane. best words in the best order fr. felt a bit taken out of the narrative when she wrote about her poetic/literary influences (would have loved if the whole collection was about nature) but it makes sense in the context of the essays put together. will reread to highlight all my favourite quotes, and will revisit when i feel like i need to get away from life for a bit.

Ianna Chia

Maria

“I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt.”

I really enjoy reading her. She used to see the world in a different perspective, that sometimes I want to see it like that for myself too.

i have been desperate to read something by mary oliver and reading this collection of selected essays... i was not disappointed! 

i truly consumed every word and her writing is simply magnificent and conforting, yet occasionally haunting at the same time, in the beat way possible.

occasionally it would become a bit tedious to read, but the great thing of a collection of essays is the fact that you can read one and feel accomplished. there is no pressure to finish the book, in order to understand it all.

i truly, and absolutely enjoyed reading this book! 

Yetta Pahling

i have been desperate to read something by mary oliver and reading this collection of selected essays... i was not disappointed! 

i truly consumed every word and her writing is simply magnificent and conforting, yet occasionally haunting at the same time, in the beat way possible.

occasionally it would become a bit tedious to read, but the great thing of a collection of essays is the fact that you can read one and feel accomplished. there is no pressure to finish the book, in order to understand it all.

i truly, and absolutely enjoyed reading this book! 

Beautiful beautiful writing made me wanna go live in the woods and never talk to anyone again 

Kate Terry

Van 

Derek Barlas

Essays written by a poet. Most of them were too dry and above my head.

luca

“And that I did not give to anyone the responsibility for my life. It is mine. I made it. And can do what I want to with it. Give it back, someday, without bitterness, to the wild and weedy dunes.”

Bri Billaney

“There’s a notion that creative people are absent-minded, reckless, heedless of social customs and obligations. It is, hopefully, true. For they are in another world altogether.” 

Gorgeous! Chefs Kiss!

alma

i think staying alive, the second essay in this book, is the best piece of non-fiction ever written and probably the best thing I have ever read. nothing has hit me quite like it. the antepenultimate (what a word) paragraph of the essay is my favorite sentence ever written. i cannot praise it enough.
the rest of the essays are fantastic and wonderful— Oliver was far beyond all of us. 

read probably in 2020.

juno

i want to reread it soon! preferred the first and last third of the collection to the middle ones about other poets and writers, the way oliver writes about nature and life within nature is so special and wonderful.

Prashant Prasad

* sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapour. with growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. 


* the world’s otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields of deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart 


* but that the self can interrupt the self - and does - is a darker and more curious matter

Sameer Vasta

This reflection was originally published on inthemargins.ca and references the following books:

- 
  A Poetry Handbook
, by Mary Oliver
- 
  Citizen: An American Lyric
, by Claudia Rankine
- 
  Islands of Decolonial Love
, by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
- 
  The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance
, by Audre Lorde
- 
  Summons: Poems from Tanzania

- 
  This Accident of Being Lost
, by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
- 
  Upstream
, by Mary Oliver

**** **** ****

"The best use of literature bends not toward the narrow and the absolute but to the extravagant and the possible."

from 
  Upstream
, by Mary Oliver

- - - - -

In the fourth grade, we received an assignment to write a poem. A few days later, we were to hand in our poems to the teacher, who would look them over that afternoon, and we would then recite them out loud to the class the next day. The morning after handing mine in, my teacher pulled me aside and told me she needed to see me after class; I would not be allowed to read my poem to the rest of the class, that day.

Crestfallen, I listened to the work of my friends, and cheered them on. That afternoon, before getting on the bus, my teacher pulled me aside and asked, "who taught you how to write this?"

I will not pretend that my submission was good, but it was different. Unlike the acrostics, haikus, limericks, and quatrains we were learning about in class and that most of my peers had written, my poem was three pages long, written in sestets with an aabbab rhyme sequence. It was an ode to a young lady in my class—I think her name was Michelle A—where I did not mention her, but instead how the world changed when she entered the room. The imagery was rudimentary and the diction plain, but it was different enough from what we were learning that my teacher was perplexed.

The honest truth was that I had discovered Wordsworth earlier that year and was so impressed by his poetry that I had spent weeks imitating his style. The nuance of his language and much of his content was above my head, but by the time I got around to reading "Lucy Gray," it did not matter that I did not understand what he was saying, but instead that the musicality of his language was enthralling. I wanted to write poems that sounded like song, and so I attempted to do that in my sprawling three-page ode.

I did end up being allowed to read my poem in class the next day. The subject of the ode was oblivious; she did not see herself in the words, and like the rest of the class, thought me pretentious and too much of a try-hard. They were all right, of course. I didn't know what I was doing, but instead was trying to impress others with my feeble imitation.

Into my late teens, I continued to write poetry, and was lucky enough to have a few of my pieces printed in small journals and magazines. And then, one day, I stopped. I stopped writing poetry, and I stopped reading it.

Until this year.

- - - - -

"The beauty and strangeness of the world may fill the eyes with its cordial refreshment. Equally it may offer the heart a dish of terror. On one side is radiance; on another is the abyss."

from 
  Upstream
, by Mary Oliver

- - - - -

If we were all taught poetry in school the way that Mary Oliver teaches the art in 
  A Poetry Handbook
, we would all be poets today. Yes, there is discussion about meter and rhyme, but Oliver opens the book with an in-depth look at sound, at how the way we read poetry is an aural experience, and how it is that sound that makes poetry resonate—both metaphorically and literally, when read out loud. Reading this chapter, I am reminded of the first time I read Wordsworth, when I was not yet nine years old, and immediately realized that poetry was about the music you heard when you read it, and not about the strict adherence to form that we had been learning in school.

Oliver does remind us that form is important, along with diction, voice, tone, and so much more—that all of these go into the true musicality and resonance of the poem—but opening her handbook with sound was what made my heart stir. This is how I wish I was taught poetry: to learn how sound influenced the soul, and how poetry—how beautiful writing of any kind—could make the spirit flourish.

I have written out this passage from Oliver's 
  Handbook
 and left it on my desk as a reminder of what I can do, what I should do, when I write, and what I should listen for, when I read:

"Language is rich, and malleable. It is a living, vibrant material, and every part of a poem works in conjunction with every other part—the content, the pace, the diction, the rhythm, the tone—as well as the very sliding, floating, thumping, rapping sounds of it."

I am diving back into poetry this year, and I am looking forward to the sliding, the floating, the thumping, the rapping.

- - - - -

"Writing actually sucks. Like you're alone in your head for days on end, just wondering if you actually can die of loneliness, just wondering how healthy it is to make all this shit up, and just wondering if you did actually make this shit up, or if you just copied down your life or worse someone else's life, or maybe you're just feeding your delusions and neuroses and then advertising it to whoever reads your drivel."

from 
  This Accident of Being Lost
, by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

- - - - -

My colleague and friend Adie was the first to hand me her copy of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's 
  Islands of Decolonial Love
. It sat on my bookshelf for a few weeks, but once I picked it up, I could not put it down. Instead, when I had turned its final page, I quickly went on to read Simpson's follow-up, 
  This Accident of Being Lost
, which was just as enthralling.

Most of the poetry we grew up reading was by white people, white men in particular. Eventually, in my late teens, I learned of Latin American poets like Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda, and of Middle Eastern poets like el-Fagommi and Rasha Omran, but still, my exposure to poetry was still defined by the Western "classics."

Simpson's collections remind me that there is another view onto the world, that poetry is not just art or craft but also a reflection of life, an expression of emotion and vulnerability and questioning. It can be raw and incisive, and in Simpson's writing, it most often is:

"If I had ten minutes alone with you, I'd tell you that I love you. I'd tell you not to be scared, because it's the kind of love that doesn't want anything or need anything. It's the kind of love that just sits there and envelops whoever you are or whoever you want to be. It doesn't demand. It isn't a commodity. It doesn't threaten all the other people you love. It doesn't fuck up and it doesn't fuck things up. It's loyal. It's willing to feel hurt. It's willing to exist on shifting terms. It's willing to stay anyway. It doesn't want. It's just there. It's just there and good and given freely, sewing up the holes unassumingly because it's the only thing to do. There is so much space around it and the space shimmers."

When I was young, poetry was presented to me in one way. Now that I am re-immersing myself, I am excited to find the other paths through verse—the paths carved by people whose voices were often silenced and definitely need to be heard.

- - - - -

Then there is dissatisfaction,
the flesh, the heart and the soul,
and most especially the mind.
There I always an antagonised ideal
in this antagonistic world:
there is always a craving desire
to satisfy the flesh,
the heart, the soul
and most especially the mind.
And one never gets all
and there is always dissatisfaction.

from "Then there is dissatisfaction" by Manga J. Kingazi Mmgaha, in 
  Summons: Poems from Tanzania


- - - - -

Early this year, I received a parcel in the mail. In it, a copy of 
  Summons: Poems from Tanzania
, and a note from a new friend I had made in the fall. In her note, she remarked upon a conversation we had when we first met, where I told her that I was born in Tanzania, and that she told me that she had worked in East Africa, many years ago at the start of her career, and still held a fondness for the region. The collection of poems was one of the mementos she had kept from her time there, and it was now mine to have.

It is a modest collection, and I did not connect with every piece, but it got me thinking: why is poetry not an appropriate way to learn about our own history? How can we discover who we are and from whence we came through verse—and why do we not do this more often?

- - - - -

There is a timbre of voice
that comes from not being heard
and knowing    you are not being
heard    noticed only
by others    not heard
for the same reason.

from "Echoes" by Audre Lorde, in 
  The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance


- - - - -

In elementary school, I learned that poetry was about beauty. I learned that a poem was written to extol, to recognize, to celebrate. We were given odes and sonnets to read, each talking about love and joy and sometimes heartbreak, but beautiful heartbreak. We weren't taught that sometimes, poetry comes of anger, of despair, of rebellion, of revolt. We were taught that we could express the range of human emotion through verse, but then were driven towards only the emotions that echoed with pleasantness.

We were not taught that poetry was a way to speak truth to power. It took me far too long to realize this.

I finally understood this when I picked up Claudia Rankine's 
  Citizen: An American Lyric
 and read the now iconic but painfully true stanza:

because white men can't
police their imagination
black men are dying

Rankine's 
  Citizen
 is filled with vignettes, prose poems that punch you in the gut while you read them. They are not the poems of my elementary school days: they hurt, enrage, fill you with anguish. They are often harrowing, but they are exactly what we all must read in order to understand our current era. At times, we feel as though these are words used as weapons, verses used as bludgeons, emptiness on the page used as pauses to reflect and recover from the blows.

I am currently reading Audre Lorde's 
  The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance
. Like Rankine does in 
  Citizen
, Lorde speaks of a life lived as a Black woman, and speaks the truth of all the joys and pains of that experience.

They are both speaking truth to power. They are both making sure we sit up and listen, and ideally, do something about the injustices they reference. They are using poetry to enlighten, to incite, to create change; they do this with power, with strength, and with beauty.

Perhaps my elementary school teachers were right: poetry is about beauty. They were just wrong in telling us what beauty could look like once it was in verse.

- - - - -

"First and foremost, I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple—or a green field—a place to enter, and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an intellectual thing—an artificial, a moment of seemly and robust wordiness—wonderful as that part of it is. I learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but to speak—to be company. It was everything that was needed, when everything was needed.”

from 
  Upstream
, by Mary Oliver

- - - - -

I am reading poetry, now, after many years away. I am not writing it just yet, but I am told by friends that it is inevitable that the more I read, the more I will be besieged by the desire to write. (I will perhaps hold off on writing three-page odes until I have had much more practice.)

For now, I am allowing myself to be enveloped by verse.

For now, I am allowing myself to listen to the sliding, the floating, the thumping, the rapping. 

For now, I am allowing myself to see a poem as a place to enter, a place in which to feel. 

For now, I am rediscovering poetry, and through it, rediscovering myself.

- - - - -

"Poetry is a river; many voices travel in it; poem after poem moves along in the exciting crests and falls of the river waves. None is timeless; each arrives in an historical context; almost everything, in the end, passes. But the desire to make a poem, and the world's willingness to receive it—indeed, the world's need of it—these will never pass."

from 
  A Poetry Handbook
, by Mary Oliver

**** **** ****

This reflection was originally published on inthemargins.ca and references the following books:

- 
  A Poetry Handbook
, by Mary Oliver
- 
  Citizen: An American Lyric
, by Claudia Rankine
- 
  Islands of Decolonial Love
, by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
- 
  The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance
, by Audre Lorde
- 
  Summons: Poems from Tanzania

- 
  This Accident of Being Lost
, by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
- 
  Upstream
, by Mary Oliver

Linn 

i don't think i'm the target audience for this so this is really on me for not really liking it

Jen Taylor

Oliver writes about nature with such care and eloquence that sometimes, upon closing the book, I was startled to find myself in an apartment in the city instead of walking along a stream in the woods.

Upstream Selected Essays

Reviews

Highlights