Mary Oliver: A Collection of Her Best Poems, Volume One

Patricia: I love this book. It is thick but not dense. The poems are laid out beautifully and I LOVE the poems of Mary Oliver, they are so personal and wonderfully observed.

United Kingdom on Nov 07, 2023

B. McConnell: The sensitivity of this poet stands out. Her poets are great for reading aloud in or to small groups.

United States on Jun 05, 2023

Akash kr roy: You will enjoy reading these poems.book and print quality is good.Mary oliver has a style of her own in every poems.you will start reading poems of other authors after reading this.

India on Aug 07, 2022

carrotmunch5: I just LOVE Mary Oliver's poems full stop.

United Kingdom on Aug 07, 2022

CJ: Mary Oliver could never be bored. She sees underneath everything. She looks on the other side of everything, and I mean everything. Her days must be filled with absolute wonder for she writes her thoughts and demonstrates to us that she knows, there is a world within this world. I imagine sitting and having a meal with this lady would be the highlight of life. Her vocab is so in sync with her eyes. Nothing gets past her. Intrinsic beauty spotted everywhere and explored until it fits the page perfectly. What a walk in nature this books is ! - Author of "Choir Of One" Poems Relating to Faith, Hope, Emotions, Struggles and Deep Thoughts.

Australia on Jul 08, 2021

SusannahB: Mary Oliver's 'New and Selected Poems' contains some wonderful and inspiring pieces including several of my favourite poems of Ms Oliver's such as: 'Wild Geese', 'The Sun', 'Morning','The Eskimos Have No Word For War, 'The Lamps' and 'The Black Walnut Tree', and others that I don't remember having seen before and some that are sharper and more thought-provoking such as: 'A Bitterness', 'Rage' and 'Acid' - and like another reviewer writing here, my copy is littered with post-its marking the pages of the poems that have 'spoken' to me. As it says on the cover of my copy: "Poems are like companions...they accompany you wherever the journey might lead" and I am looking forward to buying volume two to accompany this one. Highly recommended.

5 Stars.

United Kingdom on Sep 02, 2020

Kindle Customer: First, I'm not a "poetry person." I don't enjoy reading it, mainly because I can't understand most of it. But, recently, a newspaper article mentioned that Maria Shriver liked one poem so much she kept it on her desk. Out of curiosity, I read it online. It was a poem called "The Journey" by Mary Oliver.

Finally, a poem made sense to me! It spoke to me.

I read another of her poems online and it was the same. That's when I decided to buy my first book of poetry, "New and Selected Poems," Volume One, so I could sample poems from many of her books.

Reading her poems are like taking a walk with Mary, albeit seeing through her eyes and hearing her thoughts. Her descriptions and phrases are like moment by moment photographs of her walk. The words are simple, but the images and emotions they convey, are clear -- and because of their acknowledgement, they are important and powerful, something you are glad to know.

So, this is not a typical review of a poetry book. I don't know anything about the techniques or rules or what is considered classic poetry. All I can tell you is they are compelling. Each one pulls pull me in and I race through to see how it ends....

United States on Jun 19, 2011

Grumple Dumple: Mary Oliver overwhelms my visual and auditory senses with her language; it is precise and controlled; her imagery is brilliant. Using carefully chosen words she captures the "essence" of living things in the natural world.

Each work is masterful and seems a deep meditation that leaves a reader feeling refreshed and somehow privy to a personal, even private part of the poet as an investigator and witness to nature and its secrets.

Each time I read one of her poems I feel as if she is inviting me into the woods with her to witness the natural world in all of its sacredness.

I have yet to read a poem of hers that disappointed me.

Her mood-infused poem "Rain" (the first poem in the book) is sublime; and "Mushrooms" is glorious!

Read "Mushrooms" slowly and listen to the language; see the imagery in the mind:

Rain, and then
the cool pursed
lips of the wind
draw them
out of the ground---
red and yellow skulls
pummeling upward
through leaves,
through grasses,
through sand; astonishing
in their suddenness,
their quietude,
their wetness, they appear
on fall mornings, some
balancing in the earth
on one...

United States on Dec 15, 2005

Juan Mobili: The only problem with a volume of Mary Oliver's collected poems is that whichever poems end up excluded are likely to be the reader's loss. Such incomparable consistency of craft and soul can be expected, every single time, from Ms. Oliver!
That said, no poem here is undeserving of its inclusion, and if it took an anthology like this to have you wonder about reading her for the first time, then thank God for this book.
Included here -note that this is only the first volume- are works from her earlier books, all of which are worth buying separately. A particularly important inclusion are the selections of American Primitive, in my opinion her most moving and accomplished collection.
Those who adore poems like the glorious "Wild Geese" or were moved by the wisdom of "The Journey," will be happy to know that they are, of course, contained in this volume, along with many others begetting similar acclaim.
So, five stars for Ms. Oliver only because I can't give her ten.
As far as the publisher, I would have liked a clearer indication that this is the very same edition already published years ago. At least in my case, the additional subtitle -"Volume One"- confused me and...

United States on May 31, 2004