Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays by Mary Oliver

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Pulitzer-prize-winning poet Mary Oliver collects 26 of her poems about the birds that have been such an important part of her life

 

Within these pages you will find hawks, hummingbirds, and herons; kingfishers, catbirds, and crows; swans, swallows and, of course, the snowy owl, among a dozen others-including 10 poems that have never before been collected. She adds 2 beautifully crafted essays, Owls, selected for the Best American Essays series, and Bird, a new essay that will surely take its place among the classics of the genre.

 

In the words of the poet Stanley Kunitz, Mary Oliver's poetry is fine and deep; it reads like a blessing. Her special gift is to connect us with our sources in the natural world, its beauties and terrors and mysteries and consolations.

 

For anyone who values poetry and essays, for anyone who cares about birds, Owls and Other Fantasies will be a treasured gift; for those who love both, it will be essential reading.


Mary Oliver is beautiful and accurate in this book of poetry and prose about birds . . . all rendered with the precision of a line-drawing of a single feather that puts the entire wing into perspective.-- Orion

 

What we have here are moral essays in prose and verse, passionate meditations on the conduct of life. You will be the wiser-as I believe I am-for having read them.--Frank Wilson, Philadelphia Inquirer

 

These poems and essays dazzle us and then send us into deep reflection about the marvels and mysteries of life that come to us in the sightings, songs, and soaring of birds.--Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Health

 

Owls and Other Fantasies will bring much pleasure to the many readers who claim Oliver as their favorite poet, as well as to people new to her work. --Judy Clarence, Booklist

 

This...title will bring much pleasure to the many readers who claim Oliver as their favorite poet, as well as to people new to her work.-- Library Journal

 

A Book Sense 76 Selection in January 2004

A private person by nature, Mary Oliver (1935-2019) gave very few interviews over the years. Instead, she preferred 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 twenty books of poetry and six books of prose.

Beacon Press

Pub Date: April 01, 2006

0.3" H x 8.4" L x 6.2" W

67 pages

paperback