This was the first collection of poems by Mary Oliver that I’ve read and am now captivated. It’s a slim volume and completely approachable for us lay poetry people. I don’t understand form or how poems are built at all, but I still felt like I got enough out of these poems to feel a connection with the world around me. Here’s a snippet from Woodshed, in which she talks about the work spent keeping wood ready for the fire:

This is how it is,
year after year –
everything put by,
nothing kept,

everything used up.
And that, as much as anything,
is the wonder of it,
I say philosophically —

how it all
gathers and vanishes,
how it all
goes up in smoke.