Mary Oliver and “The Uses of Sorrow”

            Death is all in the way one holds it in her mind.  Death can be as beautiful as the subtle perfection of nature’s transient flowers or as threatening and horrifying as nature’s storms.  In Mary Oliver’s Thirst, Oliver struggles to find a balance between these two interpretations of death and between rejection and acceptance.  As a person who notices the subtle yet graceful bits of the world around her and appreciates life on an entirely different level, the death of Oliver’s life partner, Molly Malone Cook, is a devastating event.  The poems in Thirst track her personal struggle to reconcile a world that she once saw as brimming with goodness and light with a new one filled with darkness and death.  Finding that nature is no longer enough to support her, Oliver recounts her experiences finding consolation in religion and God.  In Thirst, Oliver traces her own spiritual and emotional journey as she struggles with the enormous loss of her partner and she grapples with the arrival of God into her life.

            Throughout Thirst, Oliver’s voice is incredibly consistent and clear, full of reflective observations and references to the natural world around her.  Nearly every one of her forty-three poems makes some specific reference to nature and the need to learn from, and even mimic, the natural world.  In her poems, Oliver makes frequent allusions to flowers, in particular the rose, to which she dedicates an entire poem (“When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention”).  The subject of a rose is quite fitting for the themes of the book, for the book is filled with descriptions of how stunningly beautiful the world is but also how quickly life can wither and end, which is more or less the story of a rose.  Roses are generally considered the quintessential embodiment of beauty and love, but they are ephemeral and eventually leave nature, as was the case with Oliver’s partner.  Therefore, much can be learned from the rose.  As Oliver says in “The Poet Visits the Museum of Fine Arts”, “every rose / [opens] in perfect sweetness / and [lives] / in gracious repose, / in its huge willingness to give / something, from its small self, / to the entirety of the world” (lines 5-12).  Besides the rose, Oliver makes numerous references to trees (in particular, pine trees), the ocean that surrounds her Provincetown home, and to all species of birds.  Even in her most depressed state she takes inspiration from the birds.  In her own words, “I dream at night / of birds, of the beautiful, dark seas / they push through” (“Cormorants”, lines 10-12).  In essence, she strives to mimic the birds’ persistence in her battle with depression.  Imagery of nature, in many ways her source of guidance, runs through virtually every one of Oliver’s poems.

            As the book progresses, Oliver makes more frequent allusions to religion and God as she slowly discovers faith.  Besides literally addressing the poems towards God, she also makes biblical references to places such as Gethsemane, the garden where Christ gathered with his disciples the night before crucifixion, and Jerusalem.  Though Oliver generally writes in free verse, many of her poems, towards the end of the book, take on the form of a prayer and loosely resemble a psalm in the way they are numbered and addressed to “the Lord”.  Oliver’s poems are written almost entirely in the first person and are personal reflections, but in her more “religious” poems she also apostrophizes, writing directly to God”.  By the end of the book, there is nearly as much religious imagery running through the poems as there is about the natural world.

            Besides simply presenting an assortment of Oliver’s poems, Thirst also tells a clear narrative of loss and endurance.  When the book begins, the speaker is in an almost exuberant state of appreciation of the world around her.  The first line of the book more or less captures her preliminary mood.  In her words, “My work is loving the world” (“Messenger”, line 1).  Her elation persists for some time as she describes her desire to slowly treasure all that the world has to offer.  In poems like “When I Am Among the Trees” she expands this optimistic view, declaring that, according to the trees, “[we] too have come / into the world to…go easy, to be filled / with light, and to shine” (lines 14-16).  Then, about eleven poems into the book, the narrative takes a sharp and dark turn as death claims the life of Oliver’s partner.  The loss of her life partner is also the first time God and religion begin to slip into the poems.  As her loved one is nearing death, Oliver calls out to a God she is unfamiliar with, telling him to “Come in, Come in” and give her faith (“Making the House Ready for the Lord”, lines 17).  After Molly Malone Cook has died, the poems begin to demonstrate Oliver’s efforts to appreciate a world she no longer finds filled with the same luminosity.  She seeks solace in religion, but does not feel any deep religious connection.  In her words, “I open the book / which the strange, difficult, beautiful church / has given me.  To Mathew.  Anywhere” (“After Her Death”, 12-14).  She goes through all the motions of her every day life and of religious practice, but she is too numb with pain to genuinely feel anything.  Slowly, this changes, but is only once Oliver begins to connect to God that she slowly begins to shed her depression.  As she says of her newfound relationship with God, “we enter[ed] the dialogue / of our lives that [was] beyond all under- / standing or conclusion” (“Six Recognitions of the Lord”, lines 48-50). 

It is this fresh “dialogue” that begins to rejuvenate Oliver.  Ever so slowly, Oliver pulls out of her sadness, and though she never quite restores herself to the unrestrained optimism she had before Cook’s death, she finds a new balance.  She develops a new appreciation not only of life itself, but also of the act of living (as she has experienced how suddenly life can disappear).  As she says in “The Place I Want to Get Back To”, “I live in the house / near the corner, which I have named / Gratitude” (lines 34-36).  Oliver sees the world as a place that is complicated and sometimes painful, but a place where one can also find great hope and natural beauty.  She is thankful for life in an entirely new way.  Though at times, she relapses into depression (expressed most clearly through her worries regarding her beloved dog’s old age), for the most part, the last portion of the book centers on Oliver’s developing faith and more balanced view of the world.  She makes a conscious effort to dwell on what is “beautiful and hopeful in this hard world,” and to revel in the grace God puts on earth (“The Poet Comments on Yet Another Approaching Spring”, line 27).  Oliver even comes to see the disguised blessing death can be.  In her short poem “The Uses of Sorrow”, she says quite simply, “Someone I love once gave me / a box full of darkness. / It took me a few years to understand / that this, too, was a gift” (lines 1-4).  Thirst depicts Oliver’s personal transformation as she grapples with the agonizing pain of death, which ultimately leaves her with a more grounded view of earth as a place brimming with both pain and peace and with a “thirst” for the love in the world.

            Perhaps the best embodiment of the this collection of poems is Oliver’s poem “Heavy” which encapsulates in just nine stanzas nearly every major theme of the book.  In the poem, Oliver makes “grief” a literal (and dangerous) object that she has gotten closer to than she ever thought she could, but which never killed her (line 3).  Similarly, she speaks of carrying her grief around and learning how to carry it, essentially the emotional journey she depicts in the book.  In her words, “books, bricks, grief-- / it’s all in the way / you embrace it, balance it, carry it” (lines 18-20).  She describes feeling the weight of grief become lighter and “the laughter / that comes, now and again, / out of [her] startled mouth” (lines 26-28).  In the conclusion of the poem, Oliver sums up the general feeling she imparts at the end of the book as a whole.  As she says, “How I linger / to admire, admire, admire / the things of this world / that are kind, and maybe / also troubled” (lines 29-33).  These “things” are everything from “roses” to the love she lost with death of Molly Malone Cook, and Oliver is able to purely appreciate the jumbled combination of sorrow and beauty that combine to constitute the world.

            Thirst tells the story of Oliver’s own personal upheaval and growth as she reconciles with the death of her life partner.  Though she never quite recaptures the nearly unhindered love of life she has in the beginning of the book, with her discovery of God, Oliver eventually finds light in the world again.  In her own words, she comes to learn and appreciate “that she was born into the poem that God made, and / called the world,” and that the best she can do is to revel in that world with all its imperfections and hope (“More Beautiful than the Honey Locust Are the Words of the Lord”, lines 14-15). 

“Heavy”

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it -
books, bricks, grief -
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled -
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?

Bibliography

Oliver, Mary.  Thirst.  Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. 

A Window into Laura Mullen's "Window / Candle"

            Just glancing over “Window / Candle” by Laura Mullen, I was intrigued by the way the poem’s form flitted across the page.  Hoping to find an explanation behind the distinct form of the poem, I read closer and discovered, much to my pleasure, that the form mimics the content of the poem in quite a clever way (something I love in poems).  Reading even further, I found a plethora of lovely little metaphors, tied together by the larger metaphor of “the flame”, which all combined to convey a touching, almost heartbreaking, message.

            Quite simply, the poem tells a story of loss.  Though it is not clear whom exactly the narrator lost, the loss has left the narrator in an unstable state of grief and uncertainty about the world.  Though she attempts to employ logic and proceed on with her life, she cannot seem to overcome the devastation that has invaded her emotions.  The poem is a brief snapshot into the world of someone who is still freshly upturned by grief and loss.  Though the poem is rather short, it still manages to impart a general feeling of instability and mourning, making it a little but powerful piece of work.

            The poem is nearly brimming with small metaphors that express the narrator’s state of anguish, but it is dominated by an overarching metaphor of the narrator as the flame.  The narrator first sets the mood for the poem by personifying the flame as someone dancing a “sputtering dance” (line 4).  Not only does the word “dance” imply movement, but the fact that it is a “sputtering dance” also helps convey the jitter and shakiness of the narrator (line 4).  In order to further convey her state, the narrator then calls the candle a “tattered flame”, therefore comparing it to a worn and shredded rag and even further setting her mood.  There is also much description of the narrator being in empty space or without walls, demonstrating her sense of vulnerability.  For instance, the flame is trapped “in a draft between / doors,” and the “softening” wax walls of the candle are melting around her (lines 6-9).  This sense of everything crumbling down and being in a cold, open space helps paint the picture of loneliness and grief that the author is experiencing. 

            The narrator employs even more metaphor in personifying her “understanding” as a person looking in a mirror (line 16).  In her own words, her “‘understanding’ / turns back / halted at reflecting / glass / to [her] need / for meaning in this / life” (line 16-22).  In short, though logically the narrator understands the reason for which she lost her loved one, she needs “meaning in [her] life” more than she needs such an understanding (line21-22).  As a result, her understanding is forced to turn back around.  The narrator’s clever personification of “understanding” and use of the mirror helps literally depict the abstract battles in her head.

            Towards the end of the poem, the narrator’s “vision / of the world” comes to be symbolized as a flame that is extinguished by the “flashing dark and bright” rainstorms of the sky (lines 26-30).  Like a rainstorm puts out a candle, the loss of her loved one destroys the narrator’s view of the world; the flame disappears just as her loved one did.

            In the final stanza, the narrator brings together the overarching comparison of herself to the flame of the candle.  In short, she is “the light / drowned in its own / fuel” (lines 33-35).  Her “fuel” (what kept her going in life), is whoever it is that she has lost, and ultimately she looses or “drowns” in her obsession over her “fuel” (loved one).  The narrator is the flame, and by the end of the poem she has been completely extinguished.

            Besides numerous metaphors, the narrator also uses the physical shape of the poem to illustrate her message.  Except for quotation marks, the poem has absolutely no punctuation.  This lack of grammar helps to mimic the lack of order and the general feeling of chaos the narrator feels after loosing someone so dear to her.  The only punctuation she does employ (the quotation marks) helps demonstrate that she is merely reciting the phrases in the quotes; they are not her words or what she genuinely feels.  Rather, the narrator is regurgitating the lines of someone in grieving.  In addition, the spacing and form of the poem, which darts back and forth across the page, almost perfectly mimics the movement of the “sputtering dance” the flame performs (line 4).  Simply look at the physical shape of the poem, one can feel the restless jump of both the flame and the narrator.

            Though I originally picked this poem because I liked it, as I analyzed I developed a deeper appreciation for the poem.  I think that he way the metaphors mix and flow together is quite beautiful, and I love the author’s use of shape to help tell the story of the poem.  Though somewhat depressing, I think it is a clever and well-done piece.

A (Rough) Villanelle

Robin Hood

To save the day comes Robin Hood,

He always comes and right on time,

And all will happen it as it should.

She told me that the world was good,

For each time we read, like a sign,

To save the day came Robin Hood.

I broke a glass and stained the wood,

But mother said, eyes piercing mine,

“that all will happen as it should.”

When I knew inside that none could

Cool the flames eating his lifeline,

To save the day came Robin Hood.

Flipped desk, and no one understood.

I shattered all their hearts and mine,

But all will happen as it should.

I shut my eyes as mother would

And lay my body down supine.

To save the day comes Robin Hood,

And all will happen as it should.

Found Poem

"a piece of heaven"

"a piece of heaven":
a parched, half-built
apartment complex.
Life is a pack of goats
chewing their way
through a mound of trash.

Life is young Chinese saleswomen
in ill-fitting miniskirts:
"Don't worry,
all these houses will be torn down."

If the saleswomen seemed
unmotivated,
it was because they had little
to sell.

Life is this faded Silk Road
pit stop
where a skyline once dominated, 
now flecked with cranes
and high rises.

A salesman
of European View Gardens:
"In five years
come back here.
Come back here.
COME BACK.
In five years,
come back here.
You won't recognize the place."


From "An Old Oasis Promises New Prosperity for Some" by Andrew Jacobs (The New York Times)

Thoughts on "Visiting Stanley Kunitz" by Michael Longley

         As I contemplated this week’s Poetry Daily poems, the piece that stuck with me the most was Michael Longley’s “Visiting Stanly Kunitz”.  Having never read any of Stanly Kunitz’s works myself, I nevertheless came away from the poem with a deep appreciation and almost reverence for Kunitz.  The fact that Longley was able to impress his own picture of Kunitz in such an effective and meaningful way is quite impressive. 

            In painting the picture of Longley’s encounter with Kunitz, Longley is also able to impart ideas and ruminations on life in general, and the subtle beauty one poet can bring into the world.  In the fewest possible words, the poem is about the author’s visit with the renowned American poet, Stanley Kunitz.  Longley describes brief moments he shared with Kunitz from the protracted signing of Kunitz’s book to the old man’s “age-spots”, and yet through these seemingly minute details Longley is able to convey Kunitz’s entire personality to an entirely unfamiliar reader such as myself (line 23).

            The most obvious mechanism Longley employs in the construction of this poem is the use of flowers as an elongated metaphor.  He mentions numerous flowers and plants from mountain everlasting to goose grass, and each one of these flowers helps to explain and uncover a different part of Kunitz.  The flower comparisons begin rather straightforwardly with the yellow bog asphodel, used to describe Kunitz’s shirt, but the then the metaphor begins to attack the deeper more intangible qualities that blend together to constitute Kunitz.  As the narrator says, “[his] zimmer-gavotte suggests / Madder” (lines 21-22).  That is to say, Kunitz’s walker-dance of sorts is like the bright yellow Madder flower.  This simple sentence and comparison relays a world about Kunitz’s character with the simple image of an old man, “who’ll be a hundred soon,” dancing in his walker like a bright, spring flower (line 13).  The author goes on to describe this distinct dance as goose grass, a thick and wiry plant that is nearly indestructible.  In doing so, Longley conveys all the “tenacity” and strength within Kunitz without using more than three words and a simple image (line 23).  Other images along the flower metaphor include the comparison of Kunitz’s age spots to the mudwort flower, which is able to endure and blossom in mud.  Like a delicate, white flower growing out of mud, Kunitz’s age spots have a unique beauty to them in that they come from a hard and arduous history or hard work.  They are the product of all his toil, his mud, and are therefore beautiful.  The author also speaks of Kunitz “grow[ing] anemones,” an image which I found representative of Kunitz’s poems (line 8).  As the author notes, anemones (essentially buttercups) are known in Greek as the “wind flower” or “daughter of the wind”.  To me, this conjured images of the wind carrying and blowing petals across the world just as Kunitz’s poetry has spread out around the world. 

            Sitting above all these smaller flower metaphors is the greater metaphor of Kunitz as a “spring gentian” (line 6).  A gentian is a flower generally comprised of five petals that are a bright, almost electric blue, or as the narrator says, a “heavenly / (Strictly speaking) blue” (lines 6-7).  In the very beginning of the poem, the author speaks of honoring the gentian with Kunitz, but ultimately, the poem is itself a celebration of Kunitz (the blue gentian).  Nearly all of the other flower metaphors in the poem refer in some way to Kunitz’s old age, but at the end of the poem Longley breaks from his ruminations on the old poet’s age to concentrate solely on the fresh, young beauty of the gentian (Kunitz).  As he says, “no, no.  Let it be / Spring gentian, summer sky / at sunset, Athene’s eyes, / Five petals, earthbound star” (lines 25-28).  In essence, the author ignores Kunitz’s age and sums up Kunitz as a beautiful and lovely “earthbound star” that we on earth have been privileged enough to experience (line 28).  Interestingly enough, the lines in which Longley concentrates on Kunitz’s age though the flower metaphor (lines 19-24) all have seven syllables in them, but as soon as the author brings the poem back to the blue gentian with a “no, no,” the meter changes to six syllables per line (line 25).  In this way the meter of the poem subtlety mirrors the subject of the poem.

I came away from this compact poem with a clear image not only of Stanley Kunitz, but also the spirit of Stanly Kunitz.  The beauty of the poem is that all this is expressed in precise but powerful comparisons to particular plants and an overarching flower metaphor.  Longley is able to convey the essence of one man in just 28 short lines, and in my mind, that is quite a remarkable accomplishment.

Link to "Visiting Stanley Kunitz" by Michael Longley 

anyone lived in a pretty how town by e.e. cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few)
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed is joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died I guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

10 Favorite Poems

1.  anyone lived in a pretty how town by e.e. cummings
2. Adam's Curse by William Butler Yeats
3. Daisies by Mary Oliver
4. He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by William Butler Yeats
5. The Tyger by William Blake
6. We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar
7. Ruby Tuesday by the Rolling Stones
8. somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond by e.e. cummings
9.  One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
10. Happy Birthday to You! by Dr. Seuss