Dream WorkDream Work, a collection of forty-five poems, follows both chronologically and logically Mary Oliver's American Primitive, which won for her the Pulitzer Prize for the finest book of poetry published in 1983 by an American poet. The depth and diversity of perceptual awareness-so steadfast and radiant in American Primitive-continue in Dream Work. Additionally, she has turned her attention in these poems to the solitary and difficult labors of the spirit-to accepting the truth about one's personal world, and to valuing the triumphs while transcending the failures of human relationships. Whether by way of inheritance-as in her poem about the Holocaust-or through a painful glimpse into the present-as in "Acid," a poem about an injured boy begging in the streets of Indonesia-the events and tendencies of history take on a new importance also. More deeply than in her previous volumes, the sensibility behind these poems has merged with the world. Mary Oliver's willingness to be joyful continues, deepened by self-awareness, by experience, and by choice. |
Contents
Dogfish | 3 |
Morning Poem | 6 |
The Chance to Love Everything | 8 |
Trilliums | 10 |
Rage | 12 |
Wild Geese | 14 |
Knife | 15 |
Shadows | 17 |
One or Two Things | 50 |
Poem | 52 |
Marsh Hawks | 54 |
Bowing to the Empress | 55 |
The Turtle | 57 |
Sunrise | 59 |
Two Kinds of Deliverance | 61 |
The Swimmer | 63 |
Dreams | 18 |
The River | 20 |
Consequence | 22 |
Robert Schumann | 23 |
Clamming | 24 |
The Fire | 26 |
Banyan | 27 |
Whispers | 29 |
A Poem of Black Bear | 31 |
Members of the Tribe | 32 |
Starfish | 36 |
The Journey | 38 |
A Visitor | 40 |
The House | 42 |
Stanley Kunitz | 44 |
Orion | 49 |
Milkweed | 65 |
The Waves | 66 |
Landscape | 68 |
The Shark | 69 |
Storm in Massachusetts September 1982 | 71 |
Acid | 73 |
Black Snakes | 75 |
The Moths | 77 |
At Sea | 79 |
Poem for the Anniversary | 81 |
At Loxahatchie | 84 |
Coming Home | 86 |
The Sunflowers | 88 |
Acknowledgments | 90 |
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Common terms and phrases
Acid appetite Banyan Beethoven began birds Black Bear Black Snakes blossom boat body bones branches Chance to Love Clamming clouds crying damp dark death deep DOGFISH door dreams earth easy exploded eyes faces fawn fire flaring float forest green gulls heart imagine Kinds of Deliverance knew Knife leaves lift light listen little by little lives looking Love Everything Loxahatchie luminous Marsh Hawks MARY OLIVER Meanwhile Milkweed moccasin flowers moon MORNING POEM mouth never night note after note once Orion pain was unbearable pink Poem of Black pond REVIEW rising Robert Schumann rocks rose rough seeds shadow Shark sheets shining sliding soft song spring Stanley Kunitz Starfish staring stone STORM IN MASSACHUSETTS stumbling Sunflowers swim Swimmer swirled thin thing thought Three small fish thunder tree Trilliums turn voice walking wall wanted weightless whispered Wild Geese WIND RIVER RESERVATION wings