Twelve Moons [Paperback]

Mary Oliver (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 30, 1979

In her fourth volume of poetry, Twelve Moons, Pulitzer Prize-winning Mary Oliver continues to explore the alluring, yet well-nigh inaccessible kingdoms of nature and human relationships, and man's profound, persistent desire for a joyous union with them. these vibrant, magical poems pulse with an aching awareness of nature's unaffected beauty. Her absorbing intimate vision leads us into the natural and human kingdoms we only fleetingly grasp.

Product Details

• Paperback: 77 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books (August 30, 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316650005
• ISBN-13: 978-0316650007
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #617,293 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

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nature's Best, June 25, 2000

By 

James Crews Jr. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twelve Moons (Paperback)

I found this collection of poetry in the dusty corner of an old bookstore and was pleasantly surprised. Mary Oliver composes her poetry, conjuring nature at its best, both the human aspects of it and those moments of quiet audacity in the natural world that humanity can never touch. She examines how we relate to the animals around us, and in some of her "twelve moons," Oliver asks us to put ourselves in the place of singing frogs and a birthing black bear. At the same time, she recalls the suicide of a friend or her great-aunt which, along with the others, make for poems of ultimately biting truth.

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful short collection, September 15, 2011

By 

Julie Doe (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twelve Moons (Paperback)

Like the other reviewer, I also found this book at a used book store. I was going through a phase reading a lot of poetry that used nature to explore human themes, and this book was a wonderful fit. The poems are free verse, some more structured than others, and steeped in natural imagery drawn from animals, the woods, water, and of course, the titular moons.

Some of my favorite poems include:

"At Blackwater Pond" which starts out "You know how it feels, / wanting to walk into / the rain and disappear - / wanting to feel your life / brighten and grow weightless / as a leaf in fall."

"Sleeping in the Forest" which starts with "I thought the earth / remembered me, she / took me back so tenderly, arranging / her dark skirts, her pockets / full of lichens and seeds..." and ends with "...By morning / I had vanished at least a dozen times / into something better."

"Beaver Moon - The Suicide of a Friend" which includes the lines "When somewhere life / breaks like a pane of glass" and "...you turn in your bed / to watch the moon rise, and once more / see what a small coin it is / against the darkness...".

I love the simple yet beautiful expression in these poems. Even though most are nominally about an aspect of the natural world, they still speak of human issues - of nostalgia, of the loss of a friend, of family relationships, and of the poet finding herself. I highly recommend this short collection.