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Book Cover for: Devotions: A Read with Jenna Pick: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, Mary Oliver

Devotions: A Read with Jenna Pick: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver

Reader Score

94%

94% of readers

recommend this book

Critic Reviews

Great

Based on 3 reviews on

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The New York Times Best Seller
2019 & 2020 The New York Times Best Seller
Now a Read With Jenna Book Club Pick

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver presents a personal selection of her best work in this definitive collection spanning more than five decades of her esteemed literary career.

"I love [Mary's] work. It's about nature and love and what it means to be human. . . . I find her poetry to be so cathartic and beautiful." -Jenna Bush Hager

"No matter where one starts reading, Devotions offers much to love." --The Washington Post

Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Identified as "far and away, this country's best selling poet" by Dwight Garner, she now returns with a stunning and definitive collection of her writing from the last fifty years.

Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver's work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity, published in 2015. This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Penguin Books
  • Publish Date: Nov 10th, 2020
  • Pages: 480
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.45in - 5.50in - 1.20in - 0.84lb
  • EAN: 9780399563263
  • Categories: American - GeneralSubjects & Themes - Animals & Nature

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About the Author

Born in a small town in Ohio, Mary Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28. Over the course of her long career, she received numerous awards. Her fourth book, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. She led workshops and held residencies at various colleges and universities, including Bennington College, where she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching. She died in 2019.

More books by Mary Oliver

Book Cover for: Upstream: Selected Essays, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: New and Selected Poems, Volume One, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: A Thousand Mornings: Poems, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: Why I Wake Early: New Poems, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: American Primitive, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: Blue Horses: Poems, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: Felicity: Poems, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: House of Light, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: New and Selected Poems, Volume 2, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: Thirst, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: Twelve Moons, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: Red Bird, Mary Oliver
Book Cover for: Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse, Mary Oliver

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

"In Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (Penguin), one of our most beloved writers offers both the best of her work and a spiritual road map of sorts. Spanning more than 50 years and featuring more than 200 poems, the collection shows Oliver, in the early years, turning away from grief and finding in nature a 'vast, incredible gift.' Over time, as she carefully observes and records, Oliver extols the beauty and complexity around her and reminds us of the interconnectedness of living. She also asks important questions, such as 'have you ever dared to be happy/ . . . have you ever dared to pray, ' and 'Tell me, what it is you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?' Those lines resonate as much today as when she first penned them decades ago. No matter where one starts reading, Devotions offers much to love, from Oliver's exuberant dog poems to selections from the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Primitive, and Dream Work, one of her exceptional collections. Perhaps more important, the luminous writing provides respite from our crazy world and demonstrates how mindfulness can define and transform a life, moment by moment, poem by poem." --The Washington Post

"It's as if the poet herself has sidled beside the reader and pointed us to the poems she considers most worthy of deep consideration." --Chicago Tribune