“In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” - Mary Oliver, Yes! No!ģ. “It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world.” - Mary Oliver, InvitationĢ.

(I wanted to read Oliver beyond her most popular, so I started with Upstream: Selected Essays and A Thousand Mornings.)įor today's daily dose of poetry, beauty, and devotion, here's an incomplete collection of my favorite Mary Oliver quotes for you.Ģ1 Mary Oliver Quotes about Nature, Beauty, Devotion, and Your Place in the Worldġ. Like Oliver wrote, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”Īnd this is exactly the reason for my self-prescribed daily dose of poetry: as Oliver herself put it, “I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” The world seems to spin too fast for us to slow down, but slowing down is just the thing that would help us find our footing. We're so used to doing, we've forgotten about being. Turns out, the poem requires more patience, sharper focus than what we're used to these days. Still - reading poetry used to be something more people did, more often. It's no wonder she's one of the most celebrated and widely read American poets. And somehow, she makes you feel more comfortable being human.

Then she verbalizes truths you didn't know you had buried in you.

In so much of her work, she uses nature to point to the sacred. For her, that story began with a walk in the woods. Oliver's body of work amounts to an instruction manual for how to love the world. Often called the most beloved poet in America, Mary Oliver was the first name I had in mind when I decided to read more poetry this year. Her deep sense of wonder, natural imagery, and simple language pulled me in the solace I found in her words kept me there.

Evidence poems mary oliver