Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

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Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays (None) Pub. Date: 9/30/2003 Publisher: Beacon

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Overview

Within these pages Mary Oliver collects twenty-six of her poems about the birds that have been such an important part of her life-hawks, hummingbirds, and herons; kingfishers, catbirds, and crows; swans, swallows, and, of course, the snowy owl; among a dozen others-including ten poems original to this volume. She adds two beautifully crafted essays, "Owls," selected for the Best American Essays series, and "Bird," one that will surely take its place among the classics of the genre.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Alternating poems, short essays and drawings of feathers, Oliver's 12th collection is strongest and most direct when using the first person to show the second a path to the good life: "You do not have to be good./ You do not have to walk on your knees/ for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting/ You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." Many of the poems take up moments of attention to, and are titled for, birds: goldfinches "having a melodious argument"; hummingbirds as "tiny fireworks"; herons "in the black, polished water"; starlings "Chunky and noisy/ but with stars in their black feathers"; and the local crow, of whom she says "I have never seen anything brighter." Oliver won a Pulitzer Prize for American Primitive (1984) and a National Book Award for New and Selected Poems (1992). If this book lacks some of the urgency of earlier work, it has been replaced by a confidence that seems less about writing highly crafted poems than about rendering the moment, whether of observation or imagination, simply and easily, whether in prose or verse. As an essay on a "black-backed gull" Oliver rescued puts it, "no matter how hard I try to tell this story, it's not like it was," but the best of these 28 pieces seem to get close. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Oliver has gained enormous popularity in recent years for the accessible yet highly articulate and profound treatment she gives each poem. In this collection, she focuses her wakeful attention on wildlife, primarily birds. Thus, bird enthusiasts will enjoy this book, even if they don't customarily read poetry. The poems in this slim volume are interwoven with short prose pieces; those about looking for a horned owl's nest and an achingly touching story about a rescued seagull are among the most memorable. The theme of aging runs throughout the work-life as a panorama, a landscape, through which the poet moves toward its end, observing as she goes the disparate natures of most humans and animals. Speaking of a catbird, Oliver writes: "For he will never sing for the kingdom of dollars./ For he will never grow pockets in his gray wings." Describing hummingbirds: "in their pale-green dresses;/ then they rose, tiny fireworks,/ into the leaves." An unmistakable Buddhist influence shows itself in poems such as "Yes! No!" with its final line, "To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work." This new title will bring much pleasure to the many readers who claim Oliver as their favorite poet, as well as to people new to her work. Very highly recommended.-Judy Clarence, California State Univ. Lib., Hayward Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780807068755
Publisher: Beacon
Publication date: 4/15/2006
Edition description: None
Pages: 88
Sales rank: 209,592
Product dimensions: 6.23 (w) x 8.43 (h) x 0.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Mary Oliver, winner of both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, was acknowledged by the New York Times Book Review as one of this country’s best-selling poets. Her books of poetry include Evidence, Red Bird, Thirst, and New and Selected Poems , Volumes One and Two. Her works of prose include Our World, Long Life, and A Poetry Handbook. She has recorded two audio books, At Blackwater Pond and Many Miles. She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Hobe Sound, Florida.

	Wild Geese	1
	The Dipper	2
	Spring	4
	Goldfinches	7
	Such Singing in the Wild Branches	8
	The Swan	10
	Owls	13
	June	19
	Hawk	20
	The Kingfisher	23
	Herons in Winter in the Frozen Marsh	24
	Yes! No!	27
	Hummingbirds	28
	The Kookaburras	31
	The Loon on Oak-Head Pond	33
	While I Am Writing a Poem to Celebrate Summer, the Meadowlark Begins to Sing	34
	Catbird	36
	Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard	38
	Bird	41
	Wrens	46
	Some Herons	48
	September	51
	Crow	52
	White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field	54
	Starlings in Winter	56
	I Looked Up	59
	Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond	60
	Afterword: Backyard	65

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