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sheofthemoon's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
3.75
ollykin's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
5.0
My second read of this beautiful book. I heavily recommend it to writers, poets, readers of prosaic writing, those who seek nature and question nurture. I keep finding strings of written jewels in it that I feel when I read them.
jcoryv's review against another edition
4.0
Sister Sandy’s book. Read 76 of 178 pages at her house over Thanksgiving. Probably finish up over Christmas.
exactly_here's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
spenkevich's review against another edition
5.0
‘Attention is the beginning of devotion,’ writes poet Mary Oliver in Upstream a collection of her essays. Like an echo of her poem Sometimes where she she instructs that to best live a life one should ‘Pay attention / Be astonished / Tell about it’ Oliver advises us to slow down, notice the world around us, live within it and, in turn, live more fully. It is a message that permeates these poems, which range from personal memoir and reflections on her childhood or artistic craft to brief essays on the poets that have long spoken to her heart. Upstream is a succinct but achingly lovely look into the life and mind of this marvelous poet and to hear her calm introspection on how ‘ I have made for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life,’ in ways that make us, the reader, feel that if we can glean such wisdom from her, we too can embrace a more handsome life.
‘You must not ever stop being whimsical.
And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.’
Mary Oliver has long given voice to the gorgeous feelings of love, loving life, loving nature, and learning to love oneself as well as others. Though not a love poet, I find her words are often a perfect guide when considering the intoxicating yet disarming experience of the fears and passions of love, perhaps because her work is a love of the whole of humanity and the world that holds us in its leafy arms. A queer icon and incredible poet, she has always been a favorite quite close to my heart (I wrote extensively about her poetry HERE) and in these essays we see her with just as fluid and accessible of prose as her poetry, that, like those poems, manage to layer a wealth of ideas in deceptive simplicity and usher us into a moving intimacy of thought. ‘I could not be a poet without the natural world,’ she tells us, ‘or me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.’ In the opening essay, Oliver reflects on a childhood enamoured with the natural world that first taught her to slow down and pay attention to the small details that make up the wonders of life. ‘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,’ she tells us as she takes our hand and guides us through the forests alongside her in her memories, ‘I do not think that I ever, in fact, returned home.’ To get lost inside her poetry has always felt as wild and teemingly with life as one feels deep amidst the trees and streams of the wilderness and here, just as strongly as her poetry, she transports us into the outdoor world to take in all its glory. It is no surprise that her own response to her often quoted line ‘what will you do with your one wild in precious life’ is just that: to walk in the peace of the wild world, to ‘pay attention’ and ‘be astonished.’ In these essays we go with her, walking her dog, seeking out turtles, being enamored with the foxes and flowers, and it is a wonderful place to be.
‘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.’
I quite enjoyed to get a glimpse at the interior life of this great poet, particularly when it comes to her ideas of writing. I loved her notion that ‘creative work needs solitude.’ and a ‘hunger for eternity,’ and as someone who always feels desperate for a little solitude in the bustle of busy life, it was reassuring to hear that this need wasn’t about wanting loneliness but merely the blank space that, like a canvas, we can pour our creativity over and depict the feelings and thoughts we hold inside. I found this was similar to the advice I enjoyed in [a:Amina Cain|2847824|Amina Cain|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1593588242p2/2847824.jpg]’s wonderful A Horse at Night: On Writing as well. For Oliver, the best creative artists ‘are not trying to help the world go around, but forward,’ and that ‘a poem was made not just to exist, but to speak—to be company.’ It is no surprise her poetry has always been such wholesome and warm company. As always, she is at her best when discussing the relation of human life to the natural world, the way we can bask in its beauty and learn the deep lessons of existence within it:
In short, the greatest teacher we have is nature and it is something that flows forth from all of her works. It is also something she insists we must pass along, especially to children:
It is a lovely lesson to instill, a lovely legacy to pass down.
‘So, it comes first: the world. Then, literature. And then. What one pencil moving over a thousand miles of paper can (perhaps, sometimes) do.’
Though not all is about writing or nature. We have Oliver discuss how ‘I have already lived in heaven for fifty years’ in her short piece on Provincetown and the economy of fishing, and also her reading habits. ‘I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life,’ and the middle of Upstream spends some time looking at the works of writers that have meant a lot to her. We have [a:Walt Whitman|1438|Walt Whitman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1392303683p2/1438.jpg], from whom she learned ‘that the poem is a temple—or a green field—a place to enter,’ and I really enjoyed her reflections on his work, She also discusses her shared affinity for the natural world that draws her to the works of [a:Ralph Waldo Emerson|12080|Ralph Waldo Emerson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1393555704p2/12080.jpg]. She discusses how his ‘trick’ was to
Though I best enjoyed her look at the life and legacy of [a:Edgar Allan Poe|4624490|Edgar Allan Poe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1454522972p2/4624490.jpg] and the juxtapositions of love and death. Both are central themes to her work which often remind me of [a:Jane Hirshfield|110180|Jane Hirshfield|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1304011693p2/110180.jpg]’s poetry which centers the idea that to love life we must also embrace the inevitability of letting it go. This comes across in the works of Poe, she tells us, and even in love ‘we all view time's shadow upon the beloved as wretchedly as any of Poe's narrators.’ Oliver reflects on how his ability to hold our gaze to the encounters with death makes him such a memorable writer:
Oliver also looks at the writer [a:William Wordsworth|64845|William Wordsworth|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1288772244p2/64845.jpg], not for his works as much as an experience he writes about that stuck with her as a key to understanding the mysteries of life. Wordsworth was once startled by mountains while rowing his boat and ‘the experience led him, led his mind, from simple devotion…to nature’s deeper and inexplicable greatness.’ The beauty of the world is also in its strangeness, and we should embrace both sides in full.
‘And that I did not give to anyone the responsibility for my life. It is mine. I made it. And can do what I want to with it. Give it back, someday, without bitterness, to the wild and weedy dunes.’
A true treat for fan yet just as extraordinary and insightful of a read for those as yet unfamiliar with Mary Oliver, Upstream is a soothing, empowering and insightful read. I love to read Oliver discuss her life, her ideas, and I love to read her glorious words while still reminding us that ‘the sunflowers themselves [are] far more wonderful than any words about them.’ A joy of a collection that inspires and instructs while reminding us of the joy in living within such a gorgeous and living world. ‘The world's otherness is antidote to confusion,’ she teaches, ‘that standing within this otherness—the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books—can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.’ May we do our best to make this wonderful world, and all us within it, last.
5/5
‘Be what you are, of the earth, but a dreamer too.’
‘You must not ever stop being whimsical.
And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.’
Mary Oliver has long given voice to the gorgeous feelings of love, loving life, loving nature, and learning to love oneself as well as others. Though not a love poet, I find her words are often a perfect guide when considering the intoxicating yet disarming experience of the fears and passions of love, perhaps because her work is a love of the whole of humanity and the world that holds us in its leafy arms. A queer icon and incredible poet, she has always been a favorite quite close to my heart (I wrote extensively about her poetry HERE) and in these essays we see her with just as fluid and accessible of prose as her poetry, that, like those poems, manage to layer a wealth of ideas in deceptive simplicity and usher us into a moving intimacy of thought. ‘I could not be a poet without the natural world,’ she tells us, ‘or me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.’ In the opening essay, Oliver reflects on a childhood enamoured with the natural world that first taught her to slow down and pay attention to the small details that make up the wonders of life. ‘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,’ she tells us as she takes our hand and guides us through the forests alongside her in her memories, ‘I do not think that I ever, in fact, returned home.’ To get lost inside her poetry has always felt as wild and teemingly with life as one feels deep amidst the trees and streams of the wilderness and here, just as strongly as her poetry, she transports us into the outdoor world to take in all its glory. It is no surprise that her own response to her often quoted line ‘what will you do with your one wild in precious life’ is just that: to walk in the peace of the wild world, to ‘pay attention’ and ‘be astonished.’ In these essays we go with her, walking her dog, seeking out turtles, being enamored with the foxes and flowers, and it is a wonderful place to be.
‘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.’
I quite enjoyed to get a glimpse at the interior life of this great poet, particularly when it comes to her ideas of writing. I loved her notion that ‘creative work needs solitude.’ and a ‘hunger for eternity,’ and as someone who always feels desperate for a little solitude in the bustle of busy life, it was reassuring to hear that this need wasn’t about wanting loneliness but merely the blank space that, like a canvas, we can pour our creativity over and depict the feelings and thoughts we hold inside. I found this was similar to the advice I enjoyed in [a:Amina Cain|2847824|Amina Cain|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1593588242p2/2847824.jpg]’s wonderful A Horse at Night: On Writing as well. For Oliver, the best creative artists ‘are not trying to help the world go around, but forward,’ and that ‘a poem was made not just to exist, but to speak—to be company.’ It is no surprise her poetry has always been such wholesome and warm company. As always, she is at her best when discussing the relation of human life to the natural world, the way we can bask in its beauty and learn the deep lessons of existence within it:
‘How wonderful that the universe is beautiful in so 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 im-provement. Nevertheless, its intonations are our best tonics, if we would take them. For the universe is full of radiant suggestion. For whatever reason, the heart cannot separate the world's appearance and actions from morality and valor, and the power of every idea is inten-sified, if not actually created, by its expression in sub-stance. Over and over in the butterfly we see the idea of transcendence. In the forest we see not the inert but the aspiring. In water that departs forever, and forever returns, we experience eternity.’
In short, the greatest teacher we have is nature and it is something that flows forth from all of her works. It is also something she insists we must pass along, especially to children:
‘Teach the children. We don't matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers. And the frisky ones – inkberry, lamb's-quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones – rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.’
It is a lovely lesson to instill, a lovely legacy to pass down.
‘So, it comes first: the world. Then, literature. And then. What one pencil moving over a thousand miles of paper can (perhaps, sometimes) do.’
Though not all is about writing or nature. We have Oliver discuss how ‘I have already lived in heaven for fifty years’ in her short piece on Provincetown and the economy of fishing, and also her reading habits. ‘I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life,’ and the middle of Upstream spends some time looking at the works of writers that have meant a lot to her. We have [a:Walt Whitman|1438|Walt Whitman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1392303683p2/1438.jpg], from whom she learned ‘that the poem is a temple—or a green field—a place to enter,’ and I really enjoyed her reflections on his work, She also discusses her shared affinity for the natural world that draws her to the works of [a:Ralph Waldo Emerson|12080|Ralph Waldo Emerson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1393555704p2/12080.jpg]. She discusses how his ‘trick’ was to
‘fill his essays with “things” at the same time that his subject was conceptual, invisible, no more than a glimmer, but a glimmer of immeasurable sharpness inside his eye. So he attached the common word to the startling idea. “Hitch your wagon to a star,” he advised.’
Though I best enjoyed her look at the life and legacy of [a:Edgar Allan Poe|4624490|Edgar Allan Poe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1454522972p2/4624490.jpg] and the juxtapositions of love and death. Both are central themes to her work which often remind me of [a:Jane Hirshfield|110180|Jane Hirshfield|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1304011693p2/110180.jpg]’s poetry which centers the idea that to love life we must also embrace the inevitability of letting it go. This comes across in the works of Poe, she tells us, and even in love ‘we all view time's shadow upon the beloved as wretchedly as any of Poe's narrators.’ Oliver reflects on how his ability to hold our gaze to the encounters with death makes him such a memorable writer:
‘In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love, and the ability to ask questions. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us. This is Poe's real story. As it is ours. And this is why we honor him, why we are fascinated far past the simple narratives. He writes about our own inescapable destiny.’
Oliver also looks at the writer [a:William Wordsworth|64845|William Wordsworth|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1288772244p2/64845.jpg], not for his works as much as an experience he writes about that stuck with her as a key to understanding the mysteries of life. Wordsworth was once startled by mountains while rowing his boat and ‘the experience led him, led his mind, from simple devotion…to nature’s deeper and inexplicable greatness.’ The beauty of the world is also in its strangeness, and we should embrace both sides in full.
‘And that I did not give to anyone the responsibility for my life. It is mine. I made it. And can do what I want to with it. Give it back, someday, without bitterness, to the wild and weedy dunes.’
A true treat for fan yet just as extraordinary and insightful of a read for those as yet unfamiliar with Mary Oliver, Upstream is a soothing, empowering and insightful read. I love to read Oliver discuss her life, her ideas, and I love to read her glorious words while still reminding us that ‘the sunflowers themselves [are] far more wonderful than any words about them.’ A joy of a collection that inspires and instructs while reminding us of the joy in living within such a gorgeous and living world. ‘The world's otherness is antidote to confusion,’ she teaches, ‘that standing within this otherness—the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books—can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.’ May we do our best to make this wonderful world, and all us within it, last.
5/5
‘Be what you are, of the earth, but a dreamer too.’
asukiess's review against another edition
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
4.0
not exactly a book to be rated but eaten slowly like a meal for the one who finds themselves bankrupt in various ways, creatively or emotionally or spiritually. most annotated book for me this year by far. I’d rip out multiple pages for a filofax if I had one.
amihan_drt's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
5.0
two short ones changed my life