A review by dejnozkova
Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing medium-paced

4.25

Mary Oliver is just so very soft to read. A lot of poets draw inspiration from the natural world yes, but Oliver lives in it and belongs to it. Her environment is where she learns life lessons like radical acceptance, that death gives meaning to life, the importance of letting yourself exist as you are without shame, that love can be found literally everywhere you look. I like that she has an actual relationship with our non-human neighbors instead of treating them like distant muses. She views them as teachers and lovers and friends. I read “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer last year, and I feel like Oliver understands the relationship between herself and nature in the same way that Kimmerer does. With a more holistic worldview that includes humanity within this concept of “nature”; that human beings are members of the same family as the trees and the animals. 

Just a tender and calming read. Almost therapeutic.