For Mary Oliver, autumn is a time to reflect.
Tag Archives: Mary Oliver
Choose Life over Needless Sacrifice
Trump wants people to gamble with their lives to open up the economy. These works remind us that life is too precious to be sqandered this way.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged COVID-19, Donald Trump, Lost Children, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Comments closed
Literature’s Unique Spiritual Insights
An extended reflection upon the relationship between religion and literature.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Collar", "Egrets", "Flower", Brothers Karamazov, Flannery O'Connor, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Herbert, Good Man Is Hard to Find, John Milton, King Lear, literature and religion, Paradise Lost, Religion, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Nourished by the Mystery
Two Mary Oliver fish poems complement well Christ’s invitation to become “fishers of people.”
Lord, Thou’st Made the World Too Beautiful
Millay’s gorgeous poem about autumn testifies to God’s hand in the world.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "God's Grandeur", "In Blackwater Woods", Autumn, Beauty, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Gerald Manley Hopkins Comments closed
New Student Advice: Follow Your Own Star
Thursday Recently Sewanee asked me to cover for an ailing professor and teach a section of English 101 (Composition and Literature), one of my favorite courses. I’m therefore suspending my retirement, at least partially. I love this course, which functions in some ways as an “Intro to College” course. For many students, the first semester […]
Diving into May’s Spiritual Honey
Monday I was traveling yesterday so here’s a Mary Oliver poem I’ve shared before, once in connection with Pentecost (here). Note how Oliver derives spiritual sustenance from nature, even as she simultaneously emphasizes “the flourishing of the physical body.” For Oliver, there is no separation between the physical and the spiritual realms. May May, and […]
Frogs Everywhere Shouting Their Desire
Friday Warm weather looks like it is finally here for good in southern Tennessee, and the frogs are out in force. My biology students inform me, whenever I teach Mary Oliver’s “Blossom,” that all the peeping and croaking is designed to attract a mate. Well aware of this, Oliver appears to have written her poem […]
