New and Selected Poems, Volume Two

by Oliver, Mary

• ISBN13: 9780807068861
• ISBN10: 0807068861
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-10-12
• Publisher: Beacon Press

Summary

Mary Oliver has been writing poetry for nearly five decades, and in that time she has become America"s foremost poetic voice on our experience of the physical world. This collection presents thirty-two new poems-an entire volume in itself-along with works chosen by Oliver from six of the books she has published since New and Selected Poems, Volume One. This graceful volume, designed to be paired with New and Selected Poems, Volume One, includes new poems on birds, toads, flowers, insects, bodies of water, and the extraordinary experience of the everyday in our lives. In the words of Alicia Ostriker, "Mary Oliver moves by instinct, faith, and determination. She is among our finest poets, and still growing." In both the older and new poems, Mary Oliver is a poet at the height of her control of image and language. "Oliver"s often quiet persona almost always rides a storm of discovery . . . She continues to earn applause and admiration for continuing to provide redemptive mediation and supple praises for nature in a time when so much is under threat." -R. T. Smith, Shenandoah

Author Biography

Mary Oliver is one of the most celebrated and best-selling poets in America. Her books include Red Bird; Our World; Thirst; Blue Iris; New and Selected Poems, Volume One; and New and Selected Poems, Volume Two. She has also published five books of prose, including Rules for the Dance and, most recently, Long Life. She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

New Poems (2004 -- 2005)
North Country	3	(1)
Everything	4	(1)
Children, It's Spring	5	(1)
Work, Sometimes	6	(1)
Hum	7	(1)
First Happenings	8	(1)
Mysteries, Four of the Simple Ones	9	(2)
Holding Benjamin	11	(2)
White Heron Rises Over Blackwater	13	(2)
The Real Prayers Are Not the Words, but the Attention that Comes First	15	(1)
Black Bear in the Orchard	16	(2)
Honey Locust	18	(1)
Percy (One)	19	(1)
What Is There Beyond Knowing	20	(2)
Ravens	22	(1)
The Measure	23	(1)
Truro, the Blueberry Fields	24	(1)
Oxygen	25	(1)
Climbing Pinnacle	26	(2)
Mountain Lion on East Hill Road, Austerlitz, N.Y.	28	(2)
Circles	30	(1)
Tiger Lilies	31	(1)
Of What Surrounds Me	32	(1)
The Faces of Deer	33	(1)
Terns	34	(2)
Wild, Wild	36	(1)
The Poet With His Face in His Hands	37	(1)
Over the Hill She Came	38	(2)
Reckless Poem	40	(2)
The Book	42	(1)
Meanwhile	43	(1)
Song for Autumn	44	(1)
In Praise of Craziness, of a Certain Kind	45	(1)
Patience	46	(2)
Percy (Two)	48	(1)
What the Body Says	49	(1)
Fireflies	50	(2)
The Owl Who Comes	52	(2)
Lead	54	(1)
The Cricket and the Rose	55	(1)
Little Dog's Rhapsody in the Night (Percy Three)	56	(1)
What I Have Learned So Far	57	(4)
from Blue Iris (2004)
The Bleeding-heart	61	(1)
Touch-me-nots	62	(2)
Just Lying on the Grass at Blackwater	64	(2)
How Would You Live Then?	66	(1)
Old Goldenrod at Field's Edge	67	(4)
from Why I Wake Early (2004)
Why I Wake Early	71	(1)
Bone	72	(3)
Freshen the Flowers, She Said	75	(1)
Beans	76	(1)
The Poet Goes to Indiana	77	(2)
The Snow Cricket	79	(2)
This World	81	(1)
Snow Geese	82	(2)
Bear	84	(1)
Many Miles	85	(1)
The Old Poets of China	86	(1)
White-eyes	87	(2)
Some Things, Say the Wise Ones	89	(1)
Mindful	90	(2)
Song of the Builders	92	(1)
Daisies	93	(1)
The Soul at Last	94	(1)
Lingering in Happiness	95	(4)
from Owls and Other Fantasies (2003)
The Dipper	99	(2)
Spring	101	(2)
Goldfinches	103	(1)
Such Singing in the Wild Branches	104	(2)
While I Am Writing a Poem to Celebrate Summer, the Meadowlark Begins to Sing	106	(2)
Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond	108	(5)
from Winter Hours (1999)
Three Prose Poems	113	(2)
Moss	115	(1)
The Whistler	116	(1)
The Storm	117	(4)
from West Wind (1997)
Seven White Butterflies	121	(1)
At Round Pond	122	(1)
The Dog Has Run Off Again	123	(1)
Am I Not Among the Early Risers	124	(2)
Stars	126	(2)
Forty Years	128	(2)
Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith	130	(2)
Dogs	132	(3)
West Wind, poem 1	135	(1)
West Wind, poem 2	136	(1)
West Wind, poem 3	137	(1)
West Wind, poem 7	138	(1)
West Wind, poem 8	139	(1)
West Wind, poem 9	140	(1)
Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches	141	(6)
from White Pine (1994)
Work	147	(1)
May	148	(1)
Beside the Waterfall	149	(2)
Yes! No!	151	(1)
In Pobiddy, Georgia	152	(2)
Mockingbirds	154	(2)
Grass	156	(1)
Morning Glories	157	(1)
August	158	(1)
Owl in the Black Oaks	159	(2)
The Gesture	161	(1)
I Found a Dead Fox	162	(2)
Toad	164	(1)
Rumor of Moose in the Long Twilight of New Hampshire	165	(2)
The Sea Mouse	167	(2)
William	169	(1)
Early Morning, New Hampshire	170	(2)
Wings	172	(1)
March	173	(1)
I Looked Up	174	(1)
White Pine	175