Despite being on the upstream Mari was prosperous ?
Answers
Mary Oliver is probably most famous for her poetry which is celebratory, rapturous and reverential and which is some of the most lovely poetry I’ve ever read and suffers, if suffer is the right word, from lacking negativity and glitz and for its humane and generous spirit. Which is another way of saying that despite her Pulitzer Prize there are elements of the poetic establishment which don’t take her very seriously. I love Mary Oliver’s poetry which is centred, rooted in the natural world, in which she explores the life of snakes and starfish and owls and in so doing reveals something truthful and majestic about human life and human experience, so you can imagine my absolute pleasure when I discovered that she also had a collection of essays, Upstream, which equally celebrated and explored and glorified the natural world. Amongst other things. Upstream is one of the few books I’ve bought this year, in total I’ve bought only three (for myself, I have gifted others. A birthday, without books, is birthday not worth having) and one of them was another copy of a book I already owned (though a beautiful one) and the other was a mistake. But I digress.
Upstream is one of those books which sits right in the middle of what I’m currently thinking and feeling and desiring. It is a book which reflects on the powerful, nurturing and exciting ways in which the natural world, and our connection to it, can shape our lives. It is a book about art and the place of art in moving the world forward. It is about our literary friends and the way that certain books, certain writers, become ingrained in our existence such that we cannot separate ourselves from them. It is rich with observations and sensations, it is, in places, a little disturbing and it is reflective and as beautiful as Oliver’s poems are. Each essay is a nugget of something, a reminder, perhaps, of how to reconnect with ourselves and with the world around us, using all of our senses and explorative powers. It is about centring ourselves in our lives and discovering who we are through it. It is about reminding ourselves who we are and how to bring meaning to our lives.
“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 the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness.”