West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems [Paperback]

Mary Oliver (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 1998

The New York Times has called Oliver's poems "thoroughly convincing - as genuine, moving, and implausible as the first caressing breeze of spring." In this stunning collection of forty poems she writes of nature and love, of the way they transform over time. And the way they remain constant. To quote Library Journal: "From the chaos of the world, her poems distill what it means to be human and what is worthwhile about life."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In lines pulled taut by the tension between the silent beauty of nature and the poet's longing for words, Mary Oliver has again provided readers with plenty to think about. Consider "Stars": "How can I hope to be friends / with the hard white stars / whose flaring and hissing are not speech / but a pure radiance? / How can I hope to be friends / with the yawning spaces between them / where nothing, ever, is spoken?" Yet Oliver does strike up a kind of friendship between nature's inexpressible beauty and the necessity and solace of language. She writes vividly of each, noting the way "the sunlight and shadows are chasing each other," (from "The Dog Has Run Off Again"), in one instance, while elsewhere describing the excitement of writing poems: "little curls little shafts / of letters words / little flames leaping" (from "Forty Years"). Oliver is one of the most honored poets now writing in the English language, and, along with Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, and A.R. Ammons, an important part of the revival we are seeing in contemporary pastoral poetry. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Although her papers may scatter as the west wind sweeps through her room, Oliver's house is in order. From the chaos of the world, her poems distill what it means to be human and what is worthwhile about life. Echoing the Romantics and Whitman, she affirms the value of aloneness with nature, of watching and listening?not just to get it down as art but simply to live it: "And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists/ of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,/ I don't even want to come in out of the rain." While practically every poem in this collection is about death, joy and death are inseparable: "If there is life after the earth-life, will you come with me?" The prose-poem referred to in the title?a 13-part series addressed to a lover?sums up a humble life lived to the fullest in a cricket's imagined musings: "It thought: 'here I am still, in my black suit, warm and content'?and drew a little music from its dark thighs." For all collections.?Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (April 7, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395850851
• ISBN-13: 978-0395850855
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 7 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #399,598 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 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mary Oliver is a spiritual teacher as well as a poet., November 5, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems (Hardcover)

I have treasured Mary Oliver's poetry for a number of years. This new collection, West Wind, is both a departure and a development from her earlier work. Nature is her muse, and she still uses nature's events as metaphors for spiritual awareness and growth - what's new is looser, more varied poetic forms and a playfulness coupled with "death" as a recurring theme. Mary, at 60-plus, is facing mortality. As a reader, she can take me anywhere and I'm more than willing to go - even into death. She is not only my favorite poet, but my most important spiritual teacher as well. This book has a place in everyone's poetry and/or dharma collection.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A positive review and a positively unusual request, September 23, 2005

By 

Mike Smith (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems (Paperback)

This book, to me, is about as good as poetry gets. I'm not a guy who reads a lot of poetry, but I've always enjoyed reading Mary Oliver's writing when I'm camping or exploring, and this book is among her best. She has an amazing feel for the natural world, and does a terrific job of transfering something as abstract as the feeling of a sunset into ordered, beautiful words. This is the kind of poetry even people who hate poetry might enjoy.
My older sister gave me a copy of this book a couple of years before she committed suicide. The copy she gave me was full of notes she'd written to me throughout it, and I have searched everywhere for that copy. I think I must have left it somewhere, or given it away or thoughtlessly sold it before my sister died. If anyone out there ever comes across a used, paperback copy of "West Wind" inscribed to Mike from LeeAnne, I would pay almost anything to buy it from you.
(No forgeries, please.)

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite poets, July 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems (Hardcover)

I have been waiting so long for new poems from Mary Oliver...and it was worth the wait. These are just as beautiful as the poems in White Pine, Twelve Moons, etc. I especially prize the way Oliver finds lessons about love and life from her observations of nature. Check it out, you won't be disappointed