Thank you for this! My oh-so-spiritually-enlightened friends love to post Mary Oliver poems on Facebook - “What will you do with your one wild and beautiful life?” is now indelibly etched into my brain - and I’ve always felt vaguely inadequate because I just don’t find them all that inspirational. Your piece makes me realize why. And my gut-reaction answer to Mary’s poetic question is something like, “I dunno, maybe read a good book?”
I just realized from this comment I always feel bad when reading her poetry. It makes me feel BAD because this is not an attitude or experience of life I can take up. And when it's on Facebook I feel WORSE because it reminds me other people do this. I don't even understand it. I am happy sometimes and often marvel at beauty in nature, etc. but there's always some kind of ambivalence or awareness of death or something, LOL. Not that it ruins the moment exactly. My consciousness is a drag on exhalation, even just a wee bit. Thanks for helping me realize this. Ha ha ha. It's a very amusing realization.I guess this is why people go to yoga retreats but I don't think there's a cure for some of us.
I think a lot of people find self-help spiritual exhortation to be pretty oppressive. "Just transcend yourself by trying really hard! If you don't, you're spiritually and morally lacking!" That's just kind of a shitty thing to tell people, imo. (though obviously many people respond more positively to her work.)
Now I am reading up on her, and it is interesting. She is from Ohio...in the tradition of Whitman and Dickinson (though unlike them in some ways) and she gets a lot of flack. But if a poet’s job is to let you into their mentality, then she succeeds. Maybe it’s a midwestern mentality! I couldn’t handle the midwest. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/27/what-mary-olivers-critics-dont-understand
There are a couple of high profile defenses of her in mainstream outlets; the new yorker piece is on of them.
I am adamently of the opinion that the poet's job is *not* to let you into their mentality! I mean, that can be one thing some poets do, but it's not the only goal (for me) and sometimes I prefer poets who do something else altogether.
Yes. I am not sure what the poets I like ARE doing but it isn’t that. I just found the possibility of cultural specificity and regional cultural classes amusing since I had a terrible time in Ohio, and there WAS something about the culture that cordoned off certain contradictions or ironies or moments of self-consciousness--people did this with vehemence. And I would always feel terrible that I had spoiled their day with my meta-narrative. Even the ‘and what will you do’ is such a ‘stay busy’ ideal. It’s hilariously Ohioan.
Thank you for this! My oh-so-spiritually-enlightened friends love to post Mary Oliver poems on Facebook - “What will you do with your one wild and beautiful life?” is now indelibly etched into my brain - and I’ve always felt vaguely inadequate because I just don’t find them all that inspirational. Your piece makes me realize why. And my gut-reaction answer to Mary’s poetic question is something like, “I dunno, maybe read a good book?”
she is ubiquitous.
also my life isn't very wild and beautiful, and why is that a problem? I have a fuddy duddy life, what's it to you?
I just realized from this comment I always feel bad when reading her poetry. It makes me feel BAD because this is not an attitude or experience of life I can take up. And when it's on Facebook I feel WORSE because it reminds me other people do this. I don't even understand it. I am happy sometimes and often marvel at beauty in nature, etc. but there's always some kind of ambivalence or awareness of death or something, LOL. Not that it ruins the moment exactly. My consciousness is a drag on exhalation, even just a wee bit. Thanks for helping me realize this. Ha ha ha. It's a very amusing realization.I guess this is why people go to yoga retreats but I don't think there's a cure for some of us.
I think a lot of people find self-help spiritual exhortation to be pretty oppressive. "Just transcend yourself by trying really hard! If you don't, you're spiritually and morally lacking!" That's just kind of a shitty thing to tell people, imo. (though obviously many people respond more positively to her work.)
Now I am reading up on her, and it is interesting. She is from Ohio...in the tradition of Whitman and Dickinson (though unlike them in some ways) and she gets a lot of flack. But if a poet’s job is to let you into their mentality, then she succeeds. Maybe it’s a midwestern mentality! I couldn’t handle the midwest. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/27/what-mary-olivers-critics-dont-understand
There are a couple of high profile defenses of her in mainstream outlets; the new yorker piece is on of them.
I am adamently of the opinion that the poet's job is *not* to let you into their mentality! I mean, that can be one thing some poets do, but it's not the only goal (for me) and sometimes I prefer poets who do something else altogether.
Yes. I am not sure what the poets I like ARE doing but it isn’t that. I just found the possibility of cultural specificity and regional cultural classes amusing since I had a terrible time in Ohio, and there WAS something about the culture that cordoned off certain contradictions or ironies or moments of self-consciousness--people did this with vehemence. And I would always feel terrible that I had spoiled their day with my meta-narrative. Even the ‘and what will you do’ is such a ‘stay busy’ ideal. It’s hilariously Ohioan.
I think she's a very american poet; the emerson to self-help tradition is real.