Who do you want to be in your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver More Quotes by Mary Oliver More Quotes From Mary Oliver Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began, as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth. Also, it began through the process of seeing, and feeling, and hearing, and smelling, and touching, and then remembering--I mean remembering in words--what these perceptual experiences were like, while trying to describe the endless invisible fears and desires of our inner lives. Mary Oliver poetry mean art There is a notion that creative people are absent-minded, reckless, heedless of social customs and obligations. It is, hopefully, true for they are in another world altogether. Mary Oliver creative people world It is what I was born for - to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world - to instruct myself over and over. Mary Oliver change motivational looks I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing. Mary Oliver lines feelings thinking It is no use thinking that writing of poems - the actual writing - can accommodate itself to a social setting, even the most sympathetic social setting of a workshop composed of friends. It cannot. The work improves there and often the will to work gets valuable nourishment and ideas. But, for good reasons, the poem requires of the writer not society or instruction, but a patch of profound and unbroken solitude. Mary Oliver writing ideas thinking Every year everything Mary Oliver fire loss years The poem in which the reader does not feel himself or herself a participant is a lecture, listened to from an uncomfortable chair, in a stuffy room, inside a building. Mary Oliver lectures doe rooms The three ingredients of poetry: the mystery of the universe, spiritual curiosity, the energy of language. Mary Oliver curiosity poetry spiritual Poetry is one of the original arts, and it began, as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth. Mary Oliver wilderness fine art I want to write something so simply about love or about pain that even as you are reading you feel it and as you read you keep feeling it and though it be my story it will be common, though it be singular it will be known to you so that by the end you will think— no, you will realize— that it was all the while yourself arranging the words, that it was all the time words that you yourself, out of your heart had been saying. Mary Oliver pain reading writing Every spring I hear the thrush singing in the glowing woods he is only passing through. His voice is deep, then he lifts it until it seems to fall from the sky. I am thrilled. I am grateful. Then, by the end of morning, he's gone, nothing but silence out of the tree where he rested for a night. And this I find acceptable. Not enough is a poor life. But too much is, well, too much. Imagine Verdi or Mahler every day, all day. It would exhaust anyone. Mary Oliver spring morning fall Language is, in other words, not necessary, but voluntary. If it were necessary, it would have stayed simple; it would not agitate our hearts with ever-present loveliness and ever-cresting ambiguity; it would not dream, on its long white bones, of turning into song. Mary Oliver dream heart song Attention without feeling is only a report. Mary Oliver reports feelings attention I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write. Mary Oliver notebook journey writing When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods, in the brambles nobody owns, I spend all day among the high branches, reaching my ripped arms, thinking of nothing, cramming the black honey of summer into my mouth; all day my body accepts what it is. In the dark creeks that run by there is this thick paw of my life darting among the black bells, the leaves; there is this happy tongue. Mary Oliver summer dark running The end of life has its own nature, also worth our attention. Mary Oliver end-of-life ends attention I went to India and was quite taken with it. There's a feeling there that things are holy first and useful second. And in America, we have it backwards. Mary Oliver taken feelings america Writing a poem ... is a kind of possible love affair between something like the heart (that courageous but also shy factory of emotion) and the learned skills of the conscious mind. Mary Oliver skills heart writing Everybody has to have their little tooth of power. Everybody wants to be able to bite. Mary Oliver teeth power want Do you cherish your humble and silky life? Mary Oliver heaviness cherish humble
