Will I love Upstream?

When I want to be astonished by the fierce and tender realities of the natural world—which is pretty much always—I read the late poet Mary Oliver. These are immersive essays by a writer who infused the very act of observation with a sacred energy—in her own words, “attention is the beginning of devotion.”

The essays are alive with animal life and soar with Oliver’s signature, forthright voice. In one essay, she rescues an injured gull. In another, she forages the eggs of a snapping turtle for dinner. Oliver humbly witnesses and partakes of the mystery and turns companionably to her… show more.

The world may be ending, but something will come in its place. How to see it? How do I engage the senses to feel my way into that next world? Mary Oliver!

Her book is a practice on presence, a workshop on vision and perception. The natural world is a much more quietly exploding landscape of magic after looking through Mary Oliver’s eyes. It’s personal as skin and universal as wonder. I return to it to breathe, to eat. When all the rest has run out, I head Upstream.

Mary Oliver, as a poet and an essayist, writes with a lyric sword. Upstream is a collection of essays that reflect her willingness to lose herself in the mysteries and intricacies of the natural world. In this work, Oliver contemplates the joy of her work, her passionate eye for observation, her ability and responsibility to write and think about the flora and fauna, the flowers, the grass, the water, the sky, and how they connect us to the natural world, to each other, and to ourselves.

The sheer power of her writing and command of language has always drawn me… show more.

Because she says that humility is the prize of the leaf world. Because she tries to see the world “from the level of the grasses”. Because she looks “past reason, past the provable, in other directions”. Because she seems to observe and imagine in equal parts. And because her notations about landscape and our place in it matter at a time when our relations with the natural world have become so troubled.

Mary Oliver’s writing is so arresting that it’s impossible not to underline phrases and write comments in the margins. Though not every single essay in this stunning collection is about Cape Cod, they are all a testament to Oliver’s boundless curiosity, profound ability to pay attention, and relationship to the worlds of nature and literature.