7 Mary Oliver Poems That Will Make You Appreciate Nature

If you like reading poems about nature, Mary Oliver’s work should be high on your list. Her poems bring even the most tranquil aspects of nature to life, from still ponds, to quiet owls in their perches, and even the tiny flutters of hummingbirds. 

Oliver’s poems have won the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, among many others, helping her gain much-deserved recognition as a visionary poet along the lines of Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

7 Beautiful Mary Oliver Poems

Here are some of Mary Oliver’s works that will surely give you a new perspective of the beauty of creation: 

1. Hummingbirds

In this excerpt from “Hummingbirds,” see how Oliver uses unexpected imagery to describe hummingbirds, presenting them as “tiny fireworks”: 

The female, and the two chicks, 
each no bigger than my thumb,
scattered,
shimmering 
in their pale-green dresses;
then they rose, tiny fireworks,
into the leaves and hovered;
then they sat down,
each one with dainty, charcoal fee—
each one on a slender branch—
and looked at me. 

Read the full poem here.

2. The Hermit Crab 

The short lines used in this poem mimic the quick movements of the hermit crab. In this excerpt, you will see her playful description of the crab’s shell as “folded like a pastry.” 

Once I looked inside
   the darkness
      of a shell folded like a pastry,
         and there was a fancy face—

or almost a face—
  it turned away
      and frisked up its brawny forearms
         so quickly

against the light
   and my looking in
      I scarcely had time to see it,
         gleaming

under the pure white roof
   of old calcium.
      When I set it down, it hurried
         along the tideline. 

Read the full poem here.

3. Banyan 

Personification is a tool that many writers use, especially poets, and Mary Oliver effectively uses it to describe a massive banyan tree in this poem. Check out an excerpt below: 

Something screamed
from the fringes of the swamp.
It was Banyan,
the old merchant.

It was the hundred-legged 
tree, walking again. 

The cattle egret
moved out into the sunlight,
like so many pieces of white ribbon.
The watersnakes slipped down the banks
like green hooks and floated away.

Banyan groaned.
A knee down in the east corner buckled,
a gray shin rose and the root,
wet and hairy,
sank back in, a little closer.

Then a voice like a howling wind deep in the leaves said: 
I’ll tell you a story
about a seed.

About a seed flying into a tree, and eating it
little by little.

Read the full poem here.

4. The Kingfisher 

In “The Kingfisher,” Oliver paints an engaging picture of the daily life of the kingfisher bird. Check out this excerpt: 

The kingfisher rises out of the black wave
like a blue flower, in his beak
he carries a silver leaf. I think this is 
the prettiest world—so long as you don’t mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life
that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?
There are more fish than there are leaves
on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher
wasn’t born to think about it, or anything else. 
When the wave snaps shut over his blue head, the water
remains water—hunger is the only story
he has ever heard in his life that he could believe. 

Read the full poem here.

5. The Mango 

Oliver writes poems not just about living creatures and plants, but also fruit, as she does in “Mango.” This time she uses simile among her many descriptions.

One evening I met the mango. 
At first there were four or five of them
in a bowl.

They looked like stones you find
in the rivers of Pennsylvania 
when the waters are low.
That size, and almost round.
Mossy green.

But this was a rich house, and clever too.
After salmon and salads
mangoes for everyone appeared on blue plates,
each one cut in half and scored
and shoved forward from its rind, like an orange flower,
cubist and juicy. 

When I began to eat
things happened.
All through the sweetness I heard voices,
men and women talking about something—
another country, and trouble.
It wasn’t my language, but I understood enough.
Jungles, and death. The ships
leaving the harbors, their holds
filled with mangoes. 

Read the full poem here.

6. The Moths

Although this poem is entitled “The Moth,” Oliver’s imagery actually points to themes of pain and suffering. Check out this excerpt below: 

There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know
what kind, that glimmers
by mid-May
in the forest, just
as the pink moccasin flowers
are rising. 

If you notice anything, 
it leads you to notice
more 
and more.

And anyway
I was so full of energy.
I was always running around, looking 
at this and that.

If I stopped
the pain 
was unbearable. 

Read the full poem here.

7. Morning Glories 

Check out an excerpt of this poem about the morning glory: 

Blue and dark blue
   rose and deepest rose
      white and pink they

are everywhere in the diligent
   cornfield rising and swaying
      in their reliable

finery in the little
   fling of their bodies their
      gear and tackle

all caught up in the cornstalks.
   The reaper’s story is the story
       of endless work of

work careful and heavy but the
   reaper cannot
      separate them out there they 

are in the story of his life 

Read the full poem here.

Who Was Mary Oliver? 

Unless you’re a real poetry buff, chances are you may not be as familiar with Mary Oliver as some of her more famous contemporaries. Born and raised in a suburb in Cleveland, Ohio, she frequented the nearby woods to escape a difficult home life. There, she would build huts made of grass and sticks, and write poems. 

One of her main influences was Edna St. Vincent Millay. She even lived in Millay’s home for a time.  As an adult, Oliver moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts, where the Cape Cod landscape further strengthened her observational skills in the natural world. 

Reading Poems by Mary Oliver 

Reading Mary Oliver poems is a great way to appreciate the wonders of nature, but she also deals with important issues like suffering and death. You can learn from her effective use of imagery and other literary devices, and apply them in your own poem-writing. 

If you want to learn how to write poems, we also have posts that deal with the different elements of writing poetry. We encourage you to keep reading poems from the best poets and practice writing your own as regularly as possible.

Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!

 

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