Review: Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver
I finished this today.
I understand that these are Oliver’s personal selections for anthology from a lifetime of writing poetry. Presented in reverse chronological order (newer poems first), I definitely preferred the newer, beginning poems to the older ones at the end. In fact, my favorite was the very first in the book. I’ve returned to it a number of times over the last year.
I’m sure there’s a great deal here that a re-read would improve, but I think I’ll save that for another time. I just read a poem or four for most of the last year (there were days, even weeks that I did skip). I’d like to get more in the habit of reading one poem a day and this was a good way to ease into the practice. Very approachable in general.