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New and Selected Poems, Volume One

Author Mary Oliver
$32.50 US
Beacon Press
12 per carton
On sale Nov 15, 2005 | 9780807068786
Sales rights: World except AU/NZ
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When New and Selected Poems, Volume One was originally published in 1992, Mary Oliver was awarded the National Book Award. In the fourteen years since its initial appearance it has become one of the best-selling volumes of poetry in the country. This collection features thirty poems published only in this volume as well as selections from the poet's first eight books.

Mary Oliver's perceptive, brilliantly crafted poems about the natural landscape and the fundamental questions of life and death have won high praise from critics and readers alike. In "The Summer Day," she asks, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?" "Do you love this world?" she interrupts a poem about peonies to ask the reader. "Do you cherish your humble and silky life?" She makes us see the extraordinary in our everyday lives, how something as common as light can be "an invitation / to happiness, / and that happiness, / when it's done right, / is a kind of holiness, / palpable and redemptive." She illuminates how a near miss with an alligator can be the catalyst for seeing the world "as if for the second time/the way it really is." Oliver's passionate demonstrations of delight are powerful reminders of the bond between every individual, all living things, and the natural world.
New Poems
(1991–1992)
Rain
Spring Azures
When Death Comes
Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York, 1957
Her Grave
Goldenrod
The Waterfall
Peonies
This Morning Again It Was in the Dusty Pines
Marengo
Field Near Linden, Alabama
Gannets
Whelks
Alligator Poem
Hawk
Goldfi nches
Rice
Poppies
A Certain Sharpness in the Morning Air
A Bitterness
Morning
Water Snake
The Egret
The Snowshoe Hare
The Sun
Winter
Lonely, White Fields
Hummingbird Pauses at the Trumpet Vine
White Flowers
October

From House of Light (1990)
Some Questions You Might Ask
Moccasin Flowers
The Buddha’s Last Instruction
Spring
Singapore
The Hermit Crab
Lilies
The Swan
Indonesia
Some Herons
Five a.m. in the Pinewoods
Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard
The Kookaburras
The Lilies Break Open Over the Dark Water
Nature
The Ponds
The Summer Day
Roses, Late Summer
Maybe
White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field

From Dream Work (1986)
Dogfish
Morning Poem
Rage
Wild Geese
Robert Schumann
Starfish
The Journey
A Visitor
Stanley Kunitz
One or Two Things
The Turtle
Sunrise
Two Kinds of Deliverance
Landscape
Acid
The Moths
1945–1985: Poem for the Anniversary
The Sunflowers

From American Primitive (1983)
August
Mushrooms
Lightning
Egrets
First Snow
Ghosts
Vultures
Rain in Ohio
University Hospital, Boston
Skunk Cabbage
Blossom
White Night
The Fish
Crossing the Swamp
Humpbacks
A Meeting
The Sea
Happiness
Tecumseh
In Blackwater Woods

From Twelve Moons (1979)
Sleeping in the Forest
Mussels
The Black Snake
Spring
Strawberry Moon
The Truro Bear
Entering the Kingdom
Buck Moon—From the Field Guide to Insects
Dreams
The Lamps
Bone Poem
Aunt Leaf
Hunter’s Moon— Eating the Bear
Last Days
The Black Walnut Tree
Wolf Moon
The Night Traveler
One of the astonishing aspects of Oliver's work is the consistency of tone over this long period. What changes is an increased focus on nature and an increased precision with language that has made her one of our very best poets . . . There is no complaint in Ms. Oliver's poetry, no whining, but neither is there the sense that life is in any way easy . . . These poems sustain us rather than divert us. Although few poets have fewer human beings in their poems than Mary Oliver, it is ironic that few poets also go so far to help us forward. -Stephen Dobyns, New York Times Book Review

"One would have to reach back perhaps to [John] Clare or [Christopher] Smart to safely cite a parallel to Oliver's lyricism or radical purification and her unappeasable mania for signs and wonders." -David Barber, Poetry

"I have always thought of poems as my companions-and like companions, they accompany you wherever the journey (or the afternoon) might lead . . . My most recent companion has been Mary Oliver's The Leaf and the Cloud . . . It's a brilliant meditation, a walk through the natural world with one of our preeminent contemporary poets." -Rita Dove, Washington Post

"Mary Oliver moves by instinct, faith, and determination. She is among our finest poets, and still growing." -Alicia Ostriker, The Nation

About

When New and Selected Poems, Volume One was originally published in 1992, Mary Oliver was awarded the National Book Award. In the fourteen years since its initial appearance it has become one of the best-selling volumes of poetry in the country. This collection features thirty poems published only in this volume as well as selections from the poet's first eight books.

Mary Oliver's perceptive, brilliantly crafted poems about the natural landscape and the fundamental questions of life and death have won high praise from critics and readers alike. In "The Summer Day," she asks, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?" "Do you love this world?" she interrupts a poem about peonies to ask the reader. "Do you cherish your humble and silky life?" She makes us see the extraordinary in our everyday lives, how something as common as light can be "an invitation / to happiness, / and that happiness, / when it's done right, / is a kind of holiness, / palpable and redemptive." She illuminates how a near miss with an alligator can be the catalyst for seeing the world "as if for the second time/the way it really is." Oliver's passionate demonstrations of delight are powerful reminders of the bond between every individual, all living things, and the natural world.

Table of Contents

New Poems
(1991–1992)
Rain
Spring Azures
When Death Comes
Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York, 1957
Her Grave
Goldenrod
The Waterfall
Peonies
This Morning Again It Was in the Dusty Pines
Marengo
Field Near Linden, Alabama
Gannets
Whelks
Alligator Poem
Hawk
Goldfi nches
Rice
Poppies
A Certain Sharpness in the Morning Air
A Bitterness
Morning
Water Snake
The Egret
The Snowshoe Hare
The Sun
Winter
Lonely, White Fields
Hummingbird Pauses at the Trumpet Vine
White Flowers
October

From House of Light (1990)
Some Questions You Might Ask
Moccasin Flowers
The Buddha’s Last Instruction
Spring
Singapore
The Hermit Crab
Lilies
The Swan
Indonesia
Some Herons
Five a.m. in the Pinewoods
Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard
The Kookaburras
The Lilies Break Open Over the Dark Water
Nature
The Ponds
The Summer Day
Roses, Late Summer
Maybe
White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field

From Dream Work (1986)
Dogfish
Morning Poem
Rage
Wild Geese
Robert Schumann
Starfish
The Journey
A Visitor
Stanley Kunitz
One or Two Things
The Turtle
Sunrise
Two Kinds of Deliverance
Landscape
Acid
The Moths
1945–1985: Poem for the Anniversary
The Sunflowers

From American Primitive (1983)
August
Mushrooms
Lightning
Egrets
First Snow
Ghosts
Vultures
Rain in Ohio
University Hospital, Boston
Skunk Cabbage
Blossom
White Night
The Fish
Crossing the Swamp
Humpbacks
A Meeting
The Sea
Happiness
Tecumseh
In Blackwater Woods

From Twelve Moons (1979)
Sleeping in the Forest
Mussels
The Black Snake
Spring
Strawberry Moon
The Truro Bear
Entering the Kingdom
Buck Moon—From the Field Guide to Insects
Dreams
The Lamps
Bone Poem
Aunt Leaf
Hunter’s Moon— Eating the Bear
Last Days
The Black Walnut Tree
Wolf Moon
The Night Traveler

Praise

One of the astonishing aspects of Oliver's work is the consistency of tone over this long period. What changes is an increased focus on nature and an increased precision with language that has made her one of our very best poets . . . There is no complaint in Ms. Oliver's poetry, no whining, but neither is there the sense that life is in any way easy . . . These poems sustain us rather than divert us. Although few poets have fewer human beings in their poems than Mary Oliver, it is ironic that few poets also go so far to help us forward. -Stephen Dobyns, New York Times Book Review

"One would have to reach back perhaps to [John] Clare or [Christopher] Smart to safely cite a parallel to Oliver's lyricism or radical purification and her unappeasable mania for signs and wonders." -David Barber, Poetry

"I have always thought of poems as my companions-and like companions, they accompany you wherever the journey (or the afternoon) might lead . . . My most recent companion has been Mary Oliver's The Leaf and the Cloud . . . It's a brilliant meditation, a walk through the natural world with one of our preeminent contemporary poets." -Rita Dove, Washington Post

"Mary Oliver moves by instinct, faith, and determination. She is among our finest poets, and still growing." -Alicia Ostriker, The Nation

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