Response 6: Oliver's Simple Approach to Nature

Once in a while, I come across a poet who heightens my appreciation for poetry. Unless required, I generally do not read poetry and the poems I do take pleasure in are those that have a clear message, fluid language and comfortable tone. Mary Oliver is one of the few poets I’ve enjoyed reading because her work embodies some of the traits I prefer; that same clarity and fluidity as well as simple language and passion. Her style reflects simplicity. I certainly wouldn’t describe her writing as experimental, but she is not afraid to change the organization of her poems from prose to structurally repetitive stanzas to loosely structured stanzas to even a single stanza. As a result, her poems do not become predictable in terms of organization. However, what I do expect from Oliver regularly—almost to the point of predictability—is to read about the natural world.

When writing about nature, one tendency Oliver has is to personify a plant such as sunflowers in “The Sunflowers,” goldenrod in “Old Goldenrod at Field’s Edge,” and trees in “Black Oaks.” Whenever she describes plants as having faces, hair or feelings such as exhaustion, it causes the reader, me, to identify with the plant. Thus, I care more about this specific tree or flower, about what happens to it and about how its presence affects myself and others. I think Oliver intended for the reader to feel more compassion for living things after reader her poems. Yet, I believe that she also uses nature to address deeper issues. For instance, in “The Bleeding-heart,” Oliver wrote about a woman’s longing to be more like her grandmother who loved the simple things in life and was therefore happy. Oliver’s decision to begin her poem by focusing on a long-lived bleeding-heart plant seems appropriate because the plant’s name alone draws attention to a heart bleeding, yearning for something. In the case of this poem, the speaker yearns for the same pleasure and love of life her grandmother experienced.

Although I enjoyed reading a great many of Oliver’s poems, “The Bleeding-heart” was one which spoke to me the most. Rather than simply write about nature in a way that causes the reader to appreciate a certain plant, she connected a specific flower perfectly with a personal story. I sense a greater human presence in “The Bleeding-heart” than I did in “The Sunflowers” or “Black Oaks.” Also, she connects herself to the reader by posing questions or thoughts to her audience such as, “Don’t you think that deserves a little thought?” and “Most things that are important, have you noticed, lack a certain neatness.” Because Oliver links nature to herself and to the reader, I felt more included in her work. Overall, she continually practices her ability to draw the reader into poems by making them accessible in terms of their content and theme as well as simple language.

In response to Oliver’s style, I wrote a short lyric paragraph based on lilies, more specifically blackberry lilies:

Unexpected snowfall creates an even surface of white fluff coating chrysanthemums, overgrown asparagus and acorn squash. Bright greens, oranges and reds poke their colors through the whiteness. But it’s the blackberry lilies that draw my attention. Their black, berry-shaped seed clusters make a stark contrast to pure white snowflakes. I pick them; their endurance inspires me to preserve their hardy stems. For months a blackberry bouquet rests in a waterless vase on my countertop, drying gradually until stems become so brittle and delicate that I dare not blow the dust gathered on shriveled brown petals. But their seeds have not changed, deeply black as ever, and I store them safely until the next fall when I shall harvest more