I would rather write poems than prose, any day, any place. Yet each has its own force. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are - they sort of tap dance through it. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
The three ingredients of poetry: the mystery of the universe, spiritual curiosity, the energy of language. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Who can guess the impatience of stone to be ground down, to be a part of something livelier?” — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
The poem in which the reader does not feel himself or herself a participant is a lecture, listened to from an uncomfortable… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Poetry is a serious business; literature is the apparatus through which the world tries to keep intact its important ideas and feelings. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
... the natural world is the old river that runs through everything, and I think poets will forever fish along its shores. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Far off in the red mangroves an alligator has heaved himself onto a hummock of grass and lies there, studying his poems. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Of course! the path to heaven doesn't lie down in flat miles. It's in the imagination with which you perceive this world,… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“The Uses Of Sorrow (In my sleep I dreamed this poem) Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Almost anything is too much. I am trying in my poems to have the reader be the experiencer. I do not want… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“This is a poem about death, about the heart blanching in its fold of shadows because it knows someday it will be… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
It is no use thinking that writing of poems - the actual writing - can accommodate itself to a social setting, even… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“At Blackwater Pond At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“When it over, I want to say:all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was a bridegroom, taking the… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began, as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“The Old Poets Of China Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“The poet dreams of the mountain Sometimes I grow weary of the days, with all their fits and starts. I want to… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me" Last night the rain spoke to me slowly, saying, what joy to come falling out… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Dogfish I wanted The past to go away, I wanted To leave it, like another country; I wanted My life to close,… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“I mean, by such flightiness, something that feels unsatisfied at the center of my life — that makes me shaky, fickle, inquisitive,… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“yoga soul today. instant resonation. Spring Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring down the mountain. All… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying I went closer, and I did not die.… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Blossom In April the ponds open like black blossoms, the moon swims in every one; there’s fire everywhere: frogs shouting their desire,… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“How I go to the wood Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
... to write well it is entirely necessary to read widely and deeply. Good poems are the best teachers. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
On poetry: Everyone wants to know what it means. But nobody is asking, How does it feel? — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Writers must... take care of the sensibility that houses the possibility of poems. — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Now the fire rises and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red roses of flame.” — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude? Have I endured loneliness with grace?” — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
In my own work, I usually revise through forty or fifty drafts of a poem before I begin to feel content with… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“We did not know she was sick, but she has come to the fence, walking like a woman who is balancing a… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
“And then I feel the sun itself as it blazes over the hills, like a million flowers on fire -- clearly I'm… — Mary Oliver Copy Share Image
Belief isn't always easy. But this much I have learned--- if not enough else--- to live with my eyes open. — Mary Oliver Copy Share
In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
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 Copy Share
The dream of my life is to lie down by a slow river and stare at the light in the trees - to learn… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
“All important ideas must include the trees, the mountains, and the rivers. • To understand many things you must reach out of your own condition.” — Mary Oliver Copy Share
“Sometimes I think, were I just a little rougher made, I would go altogether to the woods—to my work entirely, and solitude, a few… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
“First Snow The snow began here this morning and all day continued, its white rhetoric everywhere calling us back to why, how, whence such beauty… — mary oliver Copy Share
“What can I say that I have not said before? So I’ll say it again. The leaf has a song in it. Stone is… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
There is nothing better than work. Work is also play; children know that. Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
“Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
“I stood like Adam in his lonely garden On that first morning, shaken out of sleep, Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves, Like… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I… — Mary Oliver Copy Share
