documentary: mary oliver: saved by the beauty of the world (pbs-free)

 

pbs documentary 

Watch the documentary for free at PBS's website by clicking here

It's no secret that I adore Mary Oliver's poetry. I've featured her in multiple poetry pause posts. And, Mary does just that with her poetry- asks us to pause and look at what most of us take for granted- the magic that can be found in the natural world. 

I'm writing this post before watching the documentary, but I will surely write another post giving my review of it. 

I am always so fascinated about the life behind writers, poets, and artists, and I feel I can count on PBS to do a thorough and affecting job.

Here's The Poetry Foundation's page on Mary Oliver. It's lovely.

@The Poetry Foundation website

I truly believe that poetry is "the possibility of language". We can all benefit from slowing down- and then slowing down some more. Poetry demands that of us. 

It calls to the soul to feel into what the poet has used language to convey and to find yourself within the stanzas.

I'm off to watch this on a slow Sunday. Today I'll be staying in my pajamas later than normal, having a second up of organic single origin pour over with oatmilk (living on the edge with the oatmilk- I normally drink it black), and sinking down into Mary's life. 

Wishing you a peace-filled, slow, and easy Sunday. Happy reading ☕️

01: snow night: mary oliver :: poetry pause : midnight edition

I’m a good friend of the late night and early morning.

When I can’t figure out what to read, I open up one of my many digital poetry collections and Mary Oliver never disappoints. 

As Autumn is making way for the frozen silence that Winter allows, I settle close to nature poetry.

source: the poetry foundation

Snowy Night by Mary Oliver

Last night, an owl

in the blue dark

tossed an indeterminate number

of carefully shaped sounds into

the world, in which,

a quarter of a mile away, I happened

to be standing.

I couldn’t tell

which one it was –

the barred or the great-horned

ship of the air –

it was that distant. But, anyway,

aren’t there moments

that are better than knowing something,

and sweeter? Snow was falling,

so much like stars

filling the dark trees

that one could easily imagine

its reason for being was nothing more

than prettiness. I suppose

if this were someone else’s story

they would have insisted on knowing

whatever is knowable – would have hurried

over the fields

to name it – the owl, I mean.

But it’s mine, this poem of the night,

and I just stood there, listening and holding out

my hands to the soft glitter

falling through the air. I love this world,

but not for its answers.

And I wish good luck to the owl,

whatever its name –

and I wish great welcome to the snow,

whatever its severe and comfortless

and beautiful meaning. 

poetry pause:: audre lorde: black unicorn

I love poetry and Audre Lorde will be my focus of the year. I read and reread this poem several times a week.

source: disability history snapshots

The Black Unicorn

The black unicorn is greedy.

The black unicorn is impatient.

The black unicorn was mistaken

for a shadow

or symbol

and taken

through a cold country

where mist painted mockeries

of my fury.

It is not on her lap where the horn rests

but deep in her moonpit

growing.

The black unicorn is restless

the black unicorn is unrelenting

the black unicorn is not

free. 

22: poetry pause : the new dawn's business :: thomas hardy

breakfast & poetry

The New Dawn's Business

What are you doing outside my walls,

O Dawn of another day?

I have not called you over the edge

Of the heathy ledge,

So why do you come this way,

With your furtive footstep without sound here,

And your face so deedily gray?

‘I show a light for killing the man

Who lives not far from you,

And for bringing to birth the lady’s child,

Nigh domiciled,

And for earthing a corpse or two,

And for several other such odd jobs round here

That Time to-day must do.

‘But you he leaves alone (although,

As you have often said,

You are always ready to pay the debt

You don’t forget

You owe for board and bed):

The truth is, when men willing are found here

He takes those loth instead.’

-Thomas Hardy 

poetry pause :: humility : mary oliver

 

stock photo: simon berger

Humility

Poems arrive ready to begin.
      Poets are only the transportation.

Mary Oliver

winter 2025 poet focus: Audre Lorde + poetry pause

This year I will do a seasonal poet focus and I will kick the year off with the powerful intersectional feminist Audre Lorde. 

This seems apt considering that Audre Lorde is known for her powerful critiques of social injustice and in 2025 where differences are being ignored and sadness and hurt regarding injustice loom ahead, focuses on the words and works of this powerful legendary goddess feels right.

source: nytimes

Born: February 18, 1934, Harlem, New York, NY

Died: November 17, 1992 (age 58 years), Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

Intersectional feminist, poet, scholar, professor, civil rights activist

if you come softly

If you come as softly

As win within the trees

You may hear what I hear

See what sorrow sees.

If you come as lightly 

As threading dew

I will take you gladly

Nor ask more of you.

You may sit beside me

Silent as a breath

Only those who stay dead

Shall remember death.

And if you come I will be silent 

Nor speak harsh words to you.

I will not ask you why, now.

Or how, or what you do.

We shall sit here, softly

Beneath two different years

And the rich earth between us

Shall drink our tears.

-Audre Lorde

 

poetry pause: spotlight :: langston hughes: the negro speaks of rivers

(  To W.E.B. DuBois )

I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, ad I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers. 

-Langston Hughes

06: poetry pause : the peace of wild things :: wendell berry

This poem speaks to deeply to what this time of year stirs up in my heart and soul. I read and re-read it constantly. 

stockphoto sourced online

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-Wendell Berry

poetry pause: sometimes:: mary oliver's devotions (in part)

source: stock photo

Sometimes (one stanza)

2.

Sometimes

melancholy leaves me breathless

Mary Oliver

poetry pause: john keats:: to autumn: 1820

stockphoto

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

   Steady thy laden head across a brook;

   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloomthe soft-dying day,

   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

   Among the river sallows, borne aloft

      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

-John Keats // 1820