Dream Work

By Mary Oliver

Book Overview

Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems, follows both chrono-logically and logically Mary Oliver's American Primitive, which won her the Pulitzer Prize for the finest book of poetry published in 1983 by an American poet. The depth and diversity of perceptual awareness--so steadfast and radiant in American Primitive--continue in Dream Work. 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 fail-ures of human relationships.

Whether by way of inheritance--as in her poem about the Holocaust--or through a painful glimpse into the present--as in "Acid," a poem about an injured boy begging in the streets of Indonesia--the events and tendencies of history take on a new importance here. More deeply than in her previous volumes, the sensibility behind these poems has merged with the world. Mary Oliver's willingness to be joyful continues, deepened by self-awareness, by experience, and by choice.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0871130696
• ISBN13: 9780871130693
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

These poems are luminous and exquisite....

_Dream Work_ is the first Mary Oliver book that I found, way back in 1989 while ill with pneumonia. "The Journey", possibly Mary's most popular poem, leapt out at me and quite literally opened my mind to a deeper commitment to self-care. That poem was Good Medicine!! ... "Wild Geese" has been another balm; who among us couldn't feel more tender towards ourselves when we read these lines, "You do not have to be good./You do not have to walk on your knees/for a hunded miles through the desert, repenting./You only have to let the soft animal of your body/love what it loves."?

Excellent insight for people who've been in therapy

For those of us who have endured emotional illness, Mary Oliver really communicates the emotions and the hope. The first half of the book must have surely come from her own such experience. The second half of the book was much weaker in my opinion. She is definitely my all-time favorite poet. If I had to pick a favorite in the book it would be "Wild Geese" or "The Journey"