Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays Paperback – April 1, 2006

Mary Oliver is a splendid poet. She paints pictures, stirs your emotions, and makes you think. It's a wonderful book.

Oh, the joys of Mary Oliver’s Owls and Other Fantasies. Eavesdropping on “Goldfinches” arguing in a puddle—the beauty of “Swan” and the cloud of its wings—the sadness of “Herons in Winter in the Frozen Marsh.” The poet sees “ruckus of the cattails” in stubbled desolation and the harshness of life in the “blunt, dark finish” in the marsh. The bold “Hawk,” “alert as an admiral.” There, in this mesmerizing collection, are the “Kookaburras” with their eyes of “soft-eyed dogs.” Ms. Oliver’s story of “Bird” made me cry, and then, there was “Backyard”—just like my own winter backyard, “without direction management supervision. The birds loved it.”Owl and Other Fantasies is clearly my favorite Mary Oliver collection and, now, one of my favorite poetry books—one to return to again and again. It’s a book of sorrow, song, and grandeur. So full!

A lovely book by a favorite author. Mary Oliver’s poems are very approachable. Her nature poems are a joy to read and inspire you to look around and open your eyes to the beauty and truth of the natural world.

These delicate, evocative poems and gentle essays really speak to me. I’m so glad to find this poet. Looking forward to exploring her work further.

If you are new to Mary Oliver, this is a great place to start.Try going to You-Tube and catch a video of others perform readings from this collection.Wild Geese & Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond are personal favorties.

Another compilation of poems and essays, including a handful of new ones, in this case all about birds. Oliver is simply amazing. She makes subjects you may not care about feel meaningful and inspiring and filled with, for lack of a better word from my atheist brain, grace. While all of the essays are short and powerful, I especially liked the one about caring for a crippled gull she found on the beach for three months one winter. She called him Bird: “He was, of course, a piece of the sky. His eyes said so. This is not fact, this is the other part of knowing something, when there is no proof, but neither is there any way toward disbelief. Imagine lifting the lid from a jar and finding it filled not with darkness but with light. Bird was like that. Startling, elegant, alive.” Of course, then he dies and rips your heart out. And here’s an excerpt from a poem flipped to at random, called “Catbird”: “Since I see him every morning, I have rewarded myself the pleasure of thinking that he knows me./ Yet never once has he answered my nod./ He seems, in fact, to find in me a kind of humor, I am so vast, uncertain and strange./ I am the one who comes and goes, and who knows why./ Will I ever understand him?/ Certainly he will never understand me, or the world I come from./ For he will never sing for the kingdom of dollars./ For he will never grow pockets in his gray wings.” Grade: A

Mary is/was a National Treasure. This is another sweet gift from her. Thank you, Mary.

BEAUTIFUL EDITION