Appreciation Of The Poem Tamed Honey By Mary Oliver

As Wendy Martin says “the poem leaves the reader with painful impression of a woman in her mid-fifties, who having lost her domestic comforts is left to struggle with despair. Although her loss is mitigated by the promise of the greater rewards of heaven, the experience is deeply tragic.” (75)

Mary Oliver’s work turns towards nature as a source of inspiration it has been and describes her sense of wonder that it instills on her. She writes in “when the death comes” as follows: "I want to say: all my life / I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms." Her outlook in life was more focused on the strict role nature played in people’s lives which can be seen in her poems; “the horse”, “the sun”, and “the summer day”- "Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me what is it that you plan to do with your one

Most poetry authors give their poems abstract titles with deeper meanings within them, but Oliver did not choose to do that method. As soon as a reader sees the title of her poem, they will have an idea in their head of what the poem will be about. Doing this makes it more simple and easier to read, but at the same time relay an important message that Oliver wants readers to know. The poem revolves around the idea of oxygen and the life it brings to everything, and Oliver’s way of directly giving that hint to readers is in the

The honey spot, written by Jack Davis in 1987 is a play which talks about two important themes which are cultural beliefs and friendship. Cultural beliefs in honey spot is shown with the significance of religion. In honey spot the different cultural beliefs and values are shown of many characters who are Tim and Peggy and Ranger and William. Some cultural beliefs of indigenous people that differentiate them from other cultures are their belief of the totem. A totem as stated is a spiritual emblem which aborigines inherit. The values and cultural beliefs of Tim are discrepant to Peggy but that doesn't affect their relationship of friendship. Tim is an Indigenous kid who started school late and is living with his cousin William and his Aunty. Peggy is the daughter

Oliver uses flowers which she describes inline forty-five as, "the red and pink and white tents of softness and nectar, which wafts and hangs everywhere-- a sweetness so palpable and excessive that, before it, I'm struck, I'm taken, I'm conquered". This still beauty's power has the author taken in by them and is filled with immense happiness. The imagery of the flowers used here not only captures the beauty of the flowers but serves as a contrast to the previous dark imagery of the owl. However, an abundance of these flowers creates an excessive feeling of happiness, a euphoria, a delusion, an "immutable force". Both the great horned owl and the flowers make up nature, yet when each is in excesses, the result is

Overflowing her poem with the details of her vision, Oliver effectively transports the reader into the story being told. “My bones knock together at the pale joints, trying for a foothold, finger hold,” (line 13). The speaker in this story is struggling for what seems like endlessly, describing to the reader the exact torture that his/her body is experiencing.

Oliver’s passage is largely constructed with complex sentences, which provide insight into her views of nature. Following her discussion of various types of owls which she is accustomed to seeing and hearing, Oliver connects her experiences of wondering about nature to her own life, stating: “The world where the owl is endlessly hungry and endlessly on the hunt is the world in which I live too.” In this example, Oliver’s

Spring reflects a deep communion with the natural world, offering a fresh viewpoint of the commonplace or ordinary things in our world by subverting our expected and accepted views of that object which in turn presents a view that operates from new assumptions. Oliver depicts the natural world as a celebration of wonder and awe, the almost insignificant wonders capturing the true beauty nature beholds.

In Crossing the Swamp, Mary Oliver exposes human nature to its simplest state; the passion for life present in the natural world transforms the individual by bringing one closer to the sublime. The spirituality teeming in Oliver’s swamp metaphorically represents hidden beauty within the mundane, as a call for shifted perspective and dignified appreciation permeates the passage.

Immediately following the first statement, Oliver prompts that “You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.” The senseless wandering in a desert in harsh conditions is similar to the biblical story of Moses leading the Isrealites through the desert before reaching the Promised Land. By writing that the reader does not have to wander as a punishment leads into line four and five, where the speaker asserts that instead of being good, “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Instead of following what other’s want, the speaker proclaims that the only real necessity is to follow what your natural instincts, you animal, want. The speaker also declares inn lines six and seven that while you are talking about your despair, “the world goes on,” which proves that human traits of complaining and listening to others do not bring you closer to nature. In fact, the world continues as if you had not done anything at all. The poem then contrasts inert objects such as “the sun,” “the prairies,” and “the mountains” with objects that appear to be alive and move such as “the clear pebbles of the rain,” “the deep trees,” and “the rivers.” This compares the unmoving appearance of what society wants in the solid features of nature compared to the living and movement that is only sometimes perceived in the rain, trees, and rivers. The comparison can also be

In Mary Oliver’s poem “The Black Snake,” the narrator contemplates the cycle of life with the unpredictability of death. Mary Oliver’s work is “known for its natural themes and a continual affirmation of nature as a place of mystery and spirituality that holds the power to teach humans how to value one’s life and one’s place” (Riley). In the poem, The Black Snake, the narrator witnesses a black snake hit by a truck and killed on a road one morning. Feeling sympathy for the snake, the narrator stops, and removes the dead snake from the road. Noting the snake’s beauty, the narrator carries it from the road to some nearby bushes. Continuing to drive, the narrator reflects on how the abruptness of death ultimately revealed how the

By the end of the poem there is another shift in tone. The tone takes on a more hopeful meaning. Now, Bryant uses the spring season to compare to a new age. He mentions, “The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes/ In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,/ The bow'd with age, the infant in the smiles.”(68-70) The rebirth of human life compares to nature in the sense that when nature is reborn in springtime everything turns green. The reader ends the poem with an enlightened sense of feeling instead of the dark and gloomy feeling they felt at the beginning of the poem.

“But now I know more/ about the great wheel of growth,/ and decay, and rebirth”(Oliver). In the poem Stanley Kunitz by Mary Oliver, the speaker talks about a man who she at first misunderstands, but then realizes the reality about him. This man is Stanley Kunitz, who was the tenth Poet Laureate of the United States, and inspired many people(Poetry Foundation). Although many admire Stanley Kunitz, Mary Oliver admired him enough to write a poem about him, and how she wants to be as great of a poet as Kunitz. Even though at first Mary Oliver had misunderstood how Kunitz would work so ethically, and almost thought it was like magic. Oliver soon realized that it wasn’t magic, it had been hard work, which had make Kunitz such a phenomenal poet. Throughout the poem Oliver describes a garden, and how hard this man works to make it beautiful, which makes sense on the surface. When looking at the deeper meaning, the poem is about how hard work pays off and creates beautiful works of art.

In the same way, Mary Oliver uses figurative language throughout the poem to convey the theme of her poem. Mary Oliver states “I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly.” Oliver is trying to convey the idea of mother nature taking her kindly and gently. Another piece of figurative language in Sleeping in the Forest” that reveals the poem’s theme is “By morning I had vanished at least at least a dozen times into something better.”

She compares the new grass that is sprouting to flames of fire and there is a visual of the grass flickering just as flames do. There is almost an ominous feel as if the grass is under attack, just as her heart is from grief. The imagery of the flames also relate to symbols of romantic desire that she feels for her dead husband. The imagery describes in line 2-3 are very vivid and lively in comparison to lines 13-14, where the imagery is generalized and flat. She describes the flowers by just naming the colours like yellow and red and lacks specificity when she says “some bushes” (13). After such beautiful imagery there is little image-making vividness, it is easy to tell that the widow lacks interest in what formally gave her joy and excitement because of her grief. I believe that the masses the widow is referring to is not quantity but instead size as in heaviness, massive etc. and this relates to her grief- as I stated before, the heaviness of her grief. From this we can conclude that the speaker’s emotional condition is dazed and dull. It is as if she cannot appreciate the beauty surrounding springtime anymore because she is so focused on her grief regarding the death of her