Nature-poetry lovers can rejoice: Mary Oliver (Dog Songs) is once again in splendid form, this time with a slim, powerful collection of 39 poems centered on the natural world. She embraces the often-overlooked aspects of the flora and fauna that surround her and invites readers to sit and contemplate what it means to be part of one's environment.
In "After Reading Lucretius, I Go to the Pond," she eloquently describes the connection she feels to the Earth and its creatures as she writes, "The slippery green frog/ that went to his death/ in the heron's pink throat/ was my small brother/ and the heron/ with the white plumes/ like a crown on his head/ who is washing now his great sword-beak/ in the shining pond/ is my tall thin brother." In addition to studying many animals and birds, Oliver turns her gaze to the silence of the forest, the beauty of beach stones laid in a bowl of water and the invigorating clamor of a river as it pours timelessly over a course of rocks. Beyond these images of nature, Oliver also examines what it means to be in love, her attempts at learning yoga and what people really want from a poem ("they want something/ inexplicable/ made plain,/ easy to swallow").
Oliver is able to make the abstract concrete in such an enjoyable manner that readers are never left wondering what she means by her words. At her finest, she leaves readers of her poetry with the feeling that they've been touched by grace. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer