Quote

The poem in which the reader does not feel himself or herself a participant is a lecture, listened to from an uncomfortable chair, in a stuffy room, inside a building.

Mary Oliver

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Mary Oliver
Age: 83 †
Born: 1935
Born: September 10
Died: 2019
Died: January 17
Climate Activist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Maple Heights
Ohio
Mary Jane Oliver
Feel
Poem
Stuffy
Feels
Uncomfortable
Participant
Reader
Lecture
Room
Participants
Rooms
Lectures
Inside
Listened
Building
Chair
Doe
Chairs

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He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.
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Attention is the beginning of devotion.
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I feel the terror of idleness, like a red thirst. Death isn't just an idea.
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The three ingredients of poetry: the mystery of the universe, spiritual curiosity, the energy of language.
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I GO DOWN TO THE SHORE I go down to the shore in the morning and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out, and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall— what should I do? And the sea says in its lovely voice: Excuse me, I have work to do.
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I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not giving readings.
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If you have ever gone into the woods with me, I must love you very much.
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Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last! What a task to ask of anything, or anyone, yet it is ours, and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.
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Music: what so many sentences aspire to be.
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There is only one question: / how to love this world.
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At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I drink a long time. It tastes like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold into my body, waking the bones. I hear them deep inside me, whispering oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened?
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Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing, but looking, and touching, and loving
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You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it.
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Who do you want to be in your one wild and precious life?
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Sing, if you can sing, and it not still be musical inside yourself.
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I was hurrying through my own soul . . . I was leaning out . . . I was listening.
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I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up with too many material things.
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Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine, not to speak of the busy heart.
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As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other.
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It's morning, and again I am that lucky person who is in it.
Mary Oliver