The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays [Hardcover]

Mary Oliver (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2008

From a poet who teaches us the beauty and magic of the natural world comes a reminder that this world includes "the creatures, with their / thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze. Their / infallible sense of what their lives / are meant to be."

In The Truro Bear and Other Adventures, Mary Oliver brings together ten new poems, thirty-five of her classic poems, and two essays, all about mammals, insects, and reptiles. The award-winning poet considers beasts of all kinds: bears, snakes, spiders, porcupines, humpback whales, hermit crabs, and, of course, her beloved and disobedient little dog, Percy, who appears and even speaks in thirteen poems, the closing section of this volume.

As Renée Loth has observed in the Boston Globe, "Mary Oliver, who won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1983, is my choice for her joyous, accessible, intimate observations of the natural world . . . She teaches us the profound act of paying attention."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Oliver has the ability to transform everyday life events into something extraordinary. . . . [She shows us a natural world that is too often forgotten, in all its humor, grace and absolute loveliness.] —Emily Nicklin, Nature Conservancy

"Oliver, one of the country's most popular and highly awarded poets, presents . . . beautifully tempered lyrics celebrating the splendor of the living world . . . Oliver's signature tropes are as vital as ever-her beloved birds, dogs, snakes, and ocean are all summoned to capture the breathtaking glory of life." —Booklist

"The work of Mary Oliver is one of those rare and lovely convergences. She is a lyric artist with a riveted eye and an enormous heart, one of the nation's great spiritual sentinels."—Brian Doyle, Christian Century

"These poems sustain us rather than divert us. Although few poets have fewer human beings in their poems than Mary Oliver, it is ironic that few poets also go so far to help us forward."—Stephen Dobyns, New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Mary Oliver is one of the most celebrated and best-selling poets in America. Her books include Red Bird; Our World; Thirst; Blue Iris; New and Selected Poems, Volume One; and New and Selected Poems, Volume Two. She has also published five books of prose, including Rules for the Dance and, most recently, Long Life. She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (October 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807068845
• ISBN-13: 978-0807068847
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 0.5 x 8.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #897,868 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A private person by nature, Mary Oliver has given very few interviews over the years. Instead, she prefers to let her work speak for itself. And speak it has, for the past five decades, to countless readers. The New York Times recently acknowledged Mary Oliver as "far and away, this country's best-selling poet." Born in a small town in Ohio, Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28; No Voyage and Other Poems, originally printed in the UK by Dent Press, was reissued in the United States in 1965 by Houghton Mifflin. Oliver has since published many works of poetry and prose. As a young woman, Oliver studied at Ohio State University and Vassar College, but took no degree. She lived for several years at the home of Edna St. Vincent Millay in upper New York state, companion to the poet's sister Norma Millay. It was there, in the late '50s, that she met photographer Molly Malone Cook. For more than forty years, Cook and Oliver made their home together, largely in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where they lived until Cook's death in 2005. Over the course of her long and illustrious career, Oliver has received numerous awards. Her fourth book, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. She has also received the Shelley Memorial Award; a Guggenheim Fellowship; an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Achievement Award; the Christopher Award and the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award for House of Light; the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems; a Lannan Foundation Literary Award; and the New England Booksellers Association Award for Literary Excellence. Oliver's essays have appeared in Best American Essays 1996, 1998, 2001; the Anchor Essay Annual 1998, as well as Orion, Onearth and other periodicals. Oliver was editor of Best American Essays 2009. Oliver's books on the craft of poetry, A Poetry Handbook and Rules for the Dance, are used widely in writing programs. She is an acclaimed reader and has read in practically every state as well as other countries. She has led workshops at various colleges and universities, and held residencies at Case Western Reserve University, Bucknell University, University of Cincinnati, and Sweet Briar College. From 1995, for five years, she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College. She has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from The Art Institute of Boston (1998), Dartmouth College (2007) and Tufts University (2008). Oliver currently lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the inspiration for much of her work.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poorly transferred into Kindle format, February 17, 2009

By 

Pat (Decatur, Georgia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays (Kindle Edition)

I'm very disappointed that Amazon has produced such ugly versions of Mary Oliver's poetry books. One page with have tiny print and the next huge. Some quality control is badly needed. The poetry is wonderful; the Kindle version is horrible. Oliver cares very much about how her poems look on a page so this poor treatment of her work is especially disturbing.

Pat

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another special volume, January 13, 2009

By 

Carol D. Lewis "Appreciative Aficionada" (Cary, NC, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays (Hardcover)

MAry Oliver never disappoints. I wasn't sure about having essays as well as poems but they were also wonderful. The Truro Bear is a subtle and wonderful poem which ends "when has happiness ever required much evidence to begin its leaf-green breathing?"

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truro Bear and Other Adventures, December 16, 2008

By 

M. O'toole - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays (Hardcover)

This is a beautiful book by Mary Oliver. Her poetry is outstanding, exceptional. Read The Summer Day from this book and you'll see what I mean.