Dream Work

by Mary Oliver

Overview

Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems, follows both chronologically and logically Mary Oliver’s American Primitive, which won her the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1983. The depth and diversity of perceptual awareness — so steadfast and radiant in American Primitive — continues in Dream Work. Additionally, she has turned her attention in these poems to the solitary and difficult labors of the spirit — to accepting the truth about one’s personal world, and to valuing the triumphs while transcending the failures of human relationships.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780871130693
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	01/07/1994
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	73,617
Product dimensions:	5.52(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.29(d)

About the Author

Born in a small town in Ohio, Mary Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28. Over the course of her long career, she received numerous awards. Her fourth book, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. She led workshops and held residencies at various colleges and universities, including Bennington College, where she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching. She died in 2019.

Table of Contents

Part I
	Dogfish	3
	Morning Poem	6
	The Chance to Love Everything	8
	Trilliums	10
	Rage	12
	Wild Geese	14
	Knife	15
	Shadows	17
	Dreams	18
	The River	20
	Consequences	22
	Robert Schumann	23
	Clamming	24
	The Fire	26
	Banyan	27
	Whispers	29
	Driving Through the Wind River Reservation: A Poem of Black Bear	31
	Members of the Tribe	32
	Starfish	36
	The Journey	38
	A Visitor	40
	The House	42
	Stanley Kunitz	44
Part II
	Orion	49
	One or Two Things	50
	Poem	52
	Marsh Hawks	54
	Bowing to the Empress	55
	The Turtle	57
	Sunrise	59
	Two Kinds of Deliverance	61
	The Swimmer	63
	Milkweed	65
	The Waves	66
	Landscape	68
	The Shark	69
	Storm in Massachusetts, September 1982	71
	Acid	73
	Black Snakes	75
	The Moths	77
	At Sea	79
	1945-1985: Poem for the Anniversary	81
	At Loxahatchie	84
	Coming Home	86
	The Sunflowers	88
	Acknowledgments	90

Editorial Reviews

“Her poems are wonderingly perceptive and strongly written, but beyond that they are a spirited, expressive meditation on the impossibili­ties of what we call lives, and on the gratifications of change.” —Hayden Carruth

“Oliver’s poems are thoroughly convincing—as genuine, moving, and implausible as the first caressing breeze of spring.” —The New York Times Book Review

“One of the astonishing aspects of [Oliver’s] work is the consistency of tone over this long period. What changes is an increased focus on nature and an increased precision with language that has made her one of our very best poets. . . . 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, The New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

In the making of her poems, Oliver wields the most delicate of instruments: precision similes and astonishing metaphors. Though Dream Work , her seventh book, is somewhat less sucessful than Twelve Moons or American Primitive , which won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, few lyric voices can match hers in paying homage to the natural world. Yet, her ``dream works'' can be palpably tragic. Inured to the absence of her estranged father (``Rage'' and ``A Visitor''), Oliver ``saw what love might have done had we loved in time.'' And ``Members of the Tribe'' is a remarkable address to artists and poets on death and art. There are still too many echoes of James Wright in her workreferences to body, blessing, blossom, and bone. But that is a minor demur against one who is developing into a major poet. J.P. Lewis, Integrative Studies Dept., Otterbein Coll., Westerville, Ohio

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