Upstream: Selected Essays

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Folks, I love nature, but I love it the way E.B. White loved it, the way that Larry McMurtry and his characters love nature. As in. . . Damn, would you just look at that view?! So, after a few of these. . . "open mouthed" expressions of nature devotion, I came to these lines (dear God, please let someone be reading this review right now, because I need some hand holding here): I also loved exploring the essays concerning Gothic literature. I did in-depth studies on the subject for my under-grad university degree, before making this the primary focus of my post-grad Masters degree, and her thoughts would have been of unparalleled help if I had discovered them during this time. Now they just hold a great interest for me and her littering of classical Gothic texts in this made me so excited to continue my exploration of the genre. I have read her poetry for years, she in one of my favorites but until this book I never knew she was an essayist. The beautiful writing and thoughts that are expressed in her poetry are also expressed in her writing. Thoughts on creativity, need for solitude, the wonder of the natural world, and those writers that she has loved since her youth. You can also become a spontaneous supporter with a one-time donation in any amount: GIVE NOW BITCOIN DONATION

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I read my books with diligence, and mounting skill, and gathering certainty. I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too. Art by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston from A Child of Books, an illustrated love letter to reading I did not think of language as the means to self-description. I thought of it as the door — a thousand opening doors! — past myself. I thought of it as the means to notice, to contemplate, to praise, and, thus, to come into power.

Adults can change their circumstances; children cannot. Children are powerless, and in difficult situations they are the victims of every sorrow and mischance and rage around them, for children feel all of these things but without any of the ability that adults have to change them. Whatever can take a child beyond such circumstances, therefore, is an alleviation and a blessing. Have not read Mary Oliver prior to this but I understand she’s a celebrated poet. Her prose has the distinct voice of a poet which leads to some occasionally beautiful sentences and poignant observations. Generally, however, this eclectic mix of previously published snippets has little to say.

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i’ve never read any of oliver’s work, but now i’m genuinely considering it. i know it’s common knowledge that any poets prose will be just as pretty as their poetry — but i didn’t think y’all were serious. i thought ocean vuong was the only one. There are keen insights into the natural world, animals and literary masters that inspired her poetry. With poetry it’s okay to not understand the meaning of the poem or its language. It’s okay to play with the sound and rhythm and images and symbolism be the goal of the art. Essays, however, are about something—an idea, an argument, an analysis and should contain more than a vague notion or hint about the overarching subject.

The best use of literature bends not toward the narrow and the absolute but to the extravagant and the possible. Answers are no part of it; rather, it is the opinions, the rhapsodic persuasions, the engrafted logics, the clues that are to the mind of the reader the possible keys to his own self-quarrels, his own predicament. This is the crux of Emerson, who does not advance straight ahead but wanders to all sides of an issue; who delivers suggestions with a kindly gesture— who opens doors and tells us to look at things for ourselves. The one thing he is adamant about is that we should look— we must look— for that is the liquor of life, that brooding upon issues, that attention to thought even as we weed the garden or milk the cow." to love mary oliver is to accept that not every poem or essay will reach you and match your wavelength of relatability or depth of understanding, and i am okay with that. with that in mind, i did not love this but i also did not hate it. i liked some essays, but was waiting for others to end. I don’t mean it’s easy or assured; there are the stubborn stumps of shame, grief that remains unsolvable after all the years, a bag of stones that goes with one wherever one goes and however the hour may call for dancing and for light feet. But there is, also, the summoning world, the admirable energies of the world, better than anger, better than bitterness and, because more interesting, more alleviating. And there is the thing that one does, the needle one plies, the work, and within that work a chance to take thoughts that are hot and formless and to place them slowly and with meticulous effort into some shapely heat-retaining form, even as the gods, or nature, or the soundless wheels of time have made forms all across the soft, curved universe — that is to say, having chosen to claim my life, I have made for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life. MARY OLIVER ® is the registered trademark and service mark of NW Orchard LLC in the United States and various foreign countries. Upstream is an essay collection divided into five sections. It covers Oliver's devotion to nature, words, and home (Provincetown). It also includes thoughtful essays about authors Emerson, Poe, Whitman, and Wordsworth.

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Certain essays were written so vividly, that I felt right there with her, seeing what she had seen when she was describing the woods. Absolutely loved this book.First let me start off by saying—Mary Oliver may be my favorite poet. She’s also highly skilled at teaching poetry. One of her most compelling essays is the one in which she took care of an injured gull in her home, including the surprising moments of exhilaration and fun together. If words are brushstrokes, she lays them down delicately but with a certitude that is such a tender invigoration.

Upstream by Mary Oliver: 9780143130086 | PenguinRandomHouse

Upstream was published by Penguin Press in 2016 and I was able to read it thanks to my local library system. many places and in so many ways. But also the universe is brisk and businesslike, and no doubt does not give its delicate landscapes or its thunderous displays of power, and perhaps perception, too, for our sakes or our improvement.I enjoyed some more than others, purely because I had more interest in the topics discussed, rather than some being of weaker constitution than others. All had a transcendent and divine tone to them that felt like meditation in the written form. The essays concerning natural elements were of particular evocative delight. As he becomes weaker, she admits to being in a difficult place. "How do I say it? We grew fond. We grew into that perilous place: we grew fond." The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time. In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.