Devotions sits on my nightstand, and frequently I open it to a random page, and read.
Devotions is more than just a book; it is a sanctuary. Mary Oliver has a rare gift for making poetry feel accessible and like a conversation with an old friend.
- Mary Oliver
- Poetry
- Rich
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Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver is a definitive, 400-page retrospective curated by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet herself shortly before her death. Spanning over 50 years of her career—from her 1963 debut No Voyage and Other Poems to her 2015 collection Felicity—the book is uniquely arranged in reverse-chronological order. This structure allows readers to journey backward from the refined, spiritual simplicity of her later years to the rawer, more personal explorations of her youth.
The collection serves as a “spiritual road map,” focusing on the art of noticing. Oliver’s work is famously rooted in her solitary walks through the woods and shores of Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her poems transform simple observations of the natural world—a grasshopper, a family of herons, or her beloved dogs—into profound meditations on:
Mindfulness: The idea that “attention is the beginning of devotion.”
The Divine in Nature: Finding holiness in the “wildness” of the world rather than in formal religious structures.
Mortality and Joy: Embracing the “one wild and precious life” we are given while accepting the cyclical nature of life and death.