Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

by Mary Oliver

Book Overview

"The gift of Oliver's poetry is that she communicates the beauty she finds in the world and makes it unforgettable" ( Miami Herald ). This has never been truer than in Long Life, a luminous collection of seventeen essays and ten poems.

With the grace and precision that are the hallmarks of her work, Oliver shows us how writing "is a way of offering praise to the world" and suggests we see her poems as "little alleluias." Whether describing a goosefish stranded at low tide, the feeling of being baptized by the mist from a whale's blowhole, or the "connection between soul and landscape," Oliver invites readers to find themselves and their experiences at the center of her world. In Long Life she also speaks of poets and writers: Wordsworth's "whirlwind" of "beauty and strangeness"; Hawthorne's "sweet-tempered" side; and Emerson's belief that "a man's inclination, once awakened to it, would be to turn all the heavy sails of his life to a moral purpose."

With consummate craftsmanship, Mary Oliver has created a breathtaking volume sure to add to her reputation as "one of our very best poets" (New York Times Book Review ).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306814129
• ISBN13: 9780306814129
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Da Capo
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 0.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A Reminder To Live A Rich And Delicious Life In Your Own Neighborhood

I am a Mary Oliver fan. I love her poetry combining spirit and nature, and I can understand it. I certainly agree that writing should come from the heart; however, if it is to be published, the authors should sometimes provide a map to navigate the terrain. Not Mary Oliver. In these essays and poems, Oliver shares with us how the world calls to her and invites us to greet our world as she does hers. I particularly love: "People say to me: wouldn't you like to see Yosemite? The Bay of Fundy? The Brooks Range? I smile and answer, 'Oh yes' sometime. And go off to my woods, my ponds, my sun-filled harbor, no more than a blue comma on the map of the world, but to me, the emblem of everything. It is the intimate, never The general, that is teacherly." Teacherly. My computer says that is not a word. What does my computer know? I like it. Even her prose is poetic. "Every day my early morning walk along the water grants me a second waking. My feet are nimble, now my ears wake, and give thanks for the ocean's song." I liked Part Three the least. Her praise of Emerson and Hawthorne were first published as introductions to Modern Library Classics. However, she did tickle my curiosity about Emerson. She has given me enough in her short essay to make me want to read his work now that I am an adult. I think of all the rich material which I was fed in school and only now as a mature adult can appreciate and enjoy. Oliver does not write, here, about aging or the end of life. She writes in both prose and poetry about how full her life is. And she reminds us that full does not necessarily mean busy. She reminds me that I could live a rich and delicious life right here in my neighborhood. She reminds me that I can receive so much by being conscious. This book stays on my shelf with my other Olivers to pick back up occasionally and savor. by Judith Helburn for StorycircleBookReviews www.storycirclebookreviews.org reviewing books by, for, and about women

Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

Reading this is like peeking into Mary Oliver's Journal in which she has recorded thoughts about poems and poets, art and artists, and all the secrets and truths they share.

Dogs, nature and literature

Readers of this book come away knowing that Mary Oliver wakes up each morning, rushes outside and breathes deeply ready to fill her mind and soul with nature's surprises of the day. There is a chapter, Dog Talk, that will warm any dog lover's heart, including a wonderful listing of her dogs' names, past and present. The language is gorgeous and full of imagery yet sparse. Oliver's comment on the necessity of literature spoke to its essential place in my life. "The best use of literature bends not toward the narrow and the absolute but to the extravagant and the possible. Answers are no part of it; rather, it is the opinions, the rhapsodic persuasions, the engrafted logics, the clues that are to the mind of the reader the possible keys to his own self-quarrels, his own predicament."

Emotionally resonating, cognitively gifted reading

Long Life: Essays And Other Writings showcases the prose and poetry of Mary Oliver who has won both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for her work. A master wordsmith, Mary Oliver has authored more than twenty books, and in Long Life shows herself adept at the art of the essay as well as a gifted poet whose lyrical commentaries range from describing a goosefish stranded at low tide to being baptized by the mist from a whale's blowhole. Long Life is highly recommended, emotionally resonating, cognitively gifted reading and a welcome addition to personal and academic library literary collections.