I fall asleep to this recording about three times a week. Thank you for sharing, and endless thanks to Mary Oliver for assuaging my anxieties when I can’t sleep.
From A Thousand Mornings: 1:26 Percy 2:42 I Go Down to the Shore 3:35 I Have Decided 4:34 The Way of the World 5:27 The Mockingbird 7:41 Hum Hum 11:33 Hurricane 13:26 After I Fall Down the Stairs at the Golden Temple 13:57 Three Things to Remember Her older poems: 14:36 Wild Geese 16:10 The Summer Day 17:55 The Journey 19:45 Tecumseh 22:08 When I Am Among the Trees From A Thousand Mornings (again): 24:08 On Traveling to Beautiful Places 25:25 Tides Her older poems (again): 26:48 Blue Iris 28:20 Meadowlark Sings, And I Greet Him In Return 29:32 The Man Who has Many Answers 30:01 Mornings at Blackwater From A Thousand Mornings: 32:15 For I Will Consider My Dog Percy 35:30 The First Time Percy Came Back 36:39 Life Story 39:38 White Heron Rises Over Blackwater 40:50 Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night
I can not with this stupidity ,keep hoping I guess. I suppose I could away with it if you’re genuinely as lonely as you sound. You instantly seem like the type to have more pictures of pets than children. Wait, strike that ,no way you have kids.
Where has she been all my life? I am age 64, and I LOVE Her! She is hilarious, and so beautifully a writer, which warms my heart and makes me SMILE again.
I'm 78. It seems I've missed out on many years of poetry. Haven't read anything later than T.S. Eliot, whose poetry I dislike. Was turned off to 20th-21st Century poetry for many years, without trying more.
My favorite poet. I seem to find one of her poems just when I need them. Thank you Mary, for your lovely words and the light and hope you have left in my life.
I never read or heard your poetry until now. It's so beautiful. It made my heart ache with its beauty and insight. It made me wish I had known of you before, for the world would have felt lovelier with you in it. Thank you to you in Heaven, Mary. You have touched my heart.
Though we may be sad that she is no longer with us, she continues to show us her old truth, her old love, her old sadness, her old delights, and the depth of her old thoughts; the heavens are rejoicing to have her and continue to laugh and cry with her, to enjoy her new love, her new sadness, her new delight and the meaningful depth of her new thoughts.
To be grateful for her singular gift , her singular voice that has amazed me for so long, and now she has gone , no tears we have the poems and in that light we shine. Paulfitz
Where are you, Mary? This morning I stood at the edge of the lake, now slushy with February's moody thaw. The wild geese were already there of course. And as I attempted to apply a zen lens to my life and seek to alter not people or circumstances but the way I see them and how I reply, it occurs to me that there are no answers. Not really. There is only the sitting still. The process..the journey and those concepts which I made complicated for so damn long. There is only one energy. One life. And as you queried; 'What do you plan to do with it?' Oh Mary. I have so many plans. And dreams, frustrated. And so often feel paralyzed and inept. What do you want..and what do you have? I envision you asking. I want what I already have. I have this life. This day. I have the smiles of my reedy toddler grandson. He is growing into all his curiosity and questions, too. And I have the juiciness of the gurgling newer boy; a little apple dumpling of a human. I have this cup of coffee, morning elixir clutched in my sleepy hand. I have the lyrical gift of Joni on constant rotation, providing a soundtrack for every feeling. I have two chubby gray cats, who provide soul-healing- who show me every day how to lazily lounge around in the sunny spots, and purr. I have books to read, and poems to write. And nature. Nature gives to us all, and asks no questions. I suspect that is why you revered it so. Mary, when you transitioned to the other side, it was if the cornucopia of your mind and heart fell off a ledge and spilled out. And I am like a hungry bird, digesting your every word. I have the twin gifts of inspiration and interest. May I share them as freely as you did, and still do. I have thankfulness to no longer seek the lying solace of drink. I have the gift of words, and the ability to finally clearly think. Where are you flying to today, Mary? Or, more likely, are you just meandering on the edge of a mossy marsh somewhere... scribbling in your worn, tiny notebook, penning paens to bullfrogs and that which leaps, crawls, and takes flight. Are you smiling your sly grin like you do ~ as the morning mist kisses you? I think you are. 2/8/19
What a joy seeing and hearing your poems even though your physical being is not with us. Now when I read your book, I can hear your voice and be with you; how lovely, thank you 🙏
I read the biography of Tecumseh. He banned alcohol because it weakend his people, .he started an alphabet in his own language hoping all tribes could have the same language. He worked tirelessly to unite the tribes of southeast. The tribes of course were told any land west of the Ohio River would be theirs in perpetuity.
Only Mary can read her poems as they should be read. She has a calming influence strong enough to scare Satan . Thank you my God ,for giving us Mary ...you knew we needed her 🤍
Brief Bio: I’m Al Fogel born in 1945 and at an early age began writing poems. In 1962 I was introduced to a neighbor who just returned from Avatar Meher Baba’s “ East west” gathering and handed me a book titled “The Everything and the Nothing” that included brief but powerful passages by Meher Baba that touched me deeply and i became a “ Baba Lover” I continued writing poems and in 2010 while on Jane Reichhold’s AHA website workshopping poems I befriended a Chinese man who helped me perfect my Senryu and Haibun. Subsequently I am now considered one of the nations leading authorities on Tanka , Senryu, and Haibun. Here are some examples of each of my specialties senryu ~ dentist chair the hygienist removes my Bluetooth ~ Internet argument all his words in CAPS hers in EMOTICONS ~ after the divorce he spends more time at the dollar store ~ damsel in distress clarke kent still searching for a phone booth ~ cauliflower ears once a contender now boxing vegetables ~ under the influence - moonshine ~ Audubon sale all variety of seeds. . . early birds welcome ~ Buddhist fortune cookie the unfolded paper reads “ better luck next birth!” ~ sudden downpour. . . the adults run for shelter ** as you can see, senryu is usually humorous, but it can also be serious. For example, the following two of mine are horrific and heartbreaking ( dealing with the Holocaust): ~ cattle cars between the slats human eyes ~ stutthof - the stench of burnt hair from the chimneys ~ Tanka ( I already posted the Jackson Pollock one about painting his face but here’s another Tanka ~ Here is another Tanka: thrift store purchase inside the leather jacket a tarnished half-heart ~ Haibuns The Mathematics of Retribution “Karma is i fathomable,” I inform her It’s late and our conversation turns heavy “ Seems simple to me, “my girlfriend responds. “If I murder you, then it’s reasonable that I will be murdered in this or another life to balance the ledger.” “ Not necessarily so” I’m quick to rejoin. “What if you murdered me in this life because I murdered you in a prior life karmic debts and dues are now equalized.” “But what if I get caught and I go to jail for life. Where’s the equal payback in that?” “As I said, karma is unfathomable.” We continue discussing reincarnation and then add the possibilities of “group karma” to the mix Finally, at about midnight, we fall asleep Stutthof - the stench of burnt hair from the chimneys ~~ Mama There were days when I pretended to be too sick to go to school - - just for mamas loving embrace -her arms the heat of home Even with the onset of dementia, her cheerfulness was so contagious it was a joy being around her despite the illness. She made everyone laugh with her spontaneous unpredictable behavior. nursing home bumper wheelchair her favorite pastime Once a week I would whisk her away from the assisted-living facility and we would spend several hours together -grabbing a meal or frequenting some of her favorite second-hand stores where she loved to shop and donate clothes. When we drove to her favorite thrift in November, her dementia worsened. thrift store the dress mama donated she wants to buy On a cold December morn mama passed. The funeral was simple. There was a light drizzle as the family gathered at the gravesite. One by one, with eyes full of rain, we said our last goodbyes. autumn twilight - oh mama tuck me under hug me one more time ~ ‘Round Midnight It was a huge ballroom on the top floor of a building on Broadway --an important midtown crossroads in the heart of the Great White Way. My uncle still talks with reverence about how -in his heyday -he would travel by rail to the corner of Lenox and walk inside to the beat of jungle music. Who knew what to expect? One night you might be listening with rapt attention to Theloneous Monk and Dizzy Gillespie the godfathers of bebop in their signature beret caps, or the Nicholas Brothers flashing their wild acrobatic spins and splits, or enchanted by the sweet taste of Brown Sugar -with Bojangles out front. And when the Bird was in flight, even the moon was not high enough. But in 1940 the ballroom closed its doors to make way for a commercial housing development and another kind of night. new Harlem the a-train replaced by the bullet ~ Atlantic City New Jersey I had just graduated from high school I remember stopping for saltwater taffy -as evening journeyed slowly into night. Nearing curfew, we sat on a protruded sandy enclave--holding hands, looking out at the ocean, not saying much. In the distance the lights from an ocean liner flickered as the night kept coming on in... first “french kiss” under the boardwalk “over the moon!” ~~ All love, Al
Very much enjoyed your poems and reading. Your unique imagery engaged me throughout. I, too, am a poet ( and also a fiction story writer which I’ll elaborate shortly but for now let me say I write mostly Japanese format poems i.e. haiku , senryu, tanka/kyoka, haibun etc. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a Tanka and a haiku dedicated to Matshuo Bashō’s frog with added insightful commentary by the late AHA founder and poet Jane Reichhold who considered my haiku among her 10 favorite haiku of all time! What an honor. Here’s the Bashō poem with Jane Reichhold’ insightful insightful commentary: Bashō’s frog four hundred years of ripples At first the idea of picking only 10 of my favorite haiku seemed a rather daunting task. How could I review all the haiku I have read in my life and decide that there were only 10 that were outstanding? Then realized I was already getting a steady stream of excellent haiku day by day through the AHA forum. The puns and write-offs based on Basho's most famous haiku are so numerous I would have said that nothing new could be said with this method, but here Al Fogel proved me wrong. Perhaps part of my delight in this haiku lies in the fact that I agree with him. Here he is saying one thing about realism-ripples are on a pond after a frog jumps in, but because it refers back to Basho and his famous haiku, he is also saying something about the haiku and authors who have followed him. We, and our work, are just ripples while Basho holds the honor of inventing the idea of the sound of a frog leaping is the sound of water As haiku spreads around the world, making ripples in more and larger ponds, its ripples are wider-including us all. But his last word reminds us that we are ripples and our lives ephemeral. It will be the frogs that will remain. ~~ Now the tanka: returning home from a Jackson Pollock exhibition I smear paint on my face and turn into art ~~ Finally, the fictional story that I alluded to earlier. It not only should appeal to Afro-Americans but all individual and groups that experience racial discrimination. It is based on a true incident that took place in the 1950s when racial prejudice was rampant. My story has an unexpected heartwarming ending that coincides with my own belief akin to Dr Martin Luther King’s in a non-violent approach and resolution to racial injustice Titled “ Eloise , Edna And The Chicken Coop” ELOISE, EDNA & THE CHICKEN COOP There was once a Black lady named Eloise who inherited from her grandmother a parcel of land in the suburbs of Compton California at a time when there was strong racial prejudice against women of color-especially those Black women who owned property in predominately white neighborhoods. It happened there lived adjacent to Eloise’s land a white woman named Edna who did not like the fact that this Black woman owned land next to hers. Eloise would try to be friendly because she believed Jesus when He said “Love Thy Neighbor” and to Eloise that meant even if your neighbor was unfriendly. But whenever Eloise saw Edna, Edna would turn her back in disdain. In fact, ever since her husband died a decade ago, Edna became mean and unfriendly to everyone in the neighborhood. But to Eloise, she was so hateful and full of animosity that one night when all the lights in Eloise home were off Edna went to her own backyard where she kept her chicken coop and gathered up all the manure and dumped it on Eloise land and upon her tomatoes and her greens and everything she was growing, in an attempt to destroy it. And when Eloise realized the next morning that there was all this manure, instead of becoming angry, she decided to rake and mix it in with the soil and use it as fertilizer. Every night Edna would dump the manure from her chicken coop litter box and Eloise would get up in the morning and turn it over and mix it. This went on for almost a month until one morning Eloise noticed there was no manure in her yard. Then one of the neighbors informed Eloise that Edna had fallen ill. But because Edna was so mean and unfriendly , no one came to see her when she was sick. But when Eloise heard about Edna’s condition she picked the best flowers from her garden, walked to Edna’s house , knocked on her front door and when Edna opened the door, she was in complete shock that this Black Woman who she had been so cruel to, would be the only neighbor to visit her and bring flowers. Edna was deeply moved by Eloise kindness. Then Eloise handed the flowers to Edna who said, “These are the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen! Where’d you get them?” Eloise replied, “You helped me make them, Edna, because when you were dumping in my yard, I decided to plant some roses and use your manure as fertilizer.“ This genuine act of kindness opened the floodgate of Edna’s heart that had been closed for so long. “When I’m feeling better, I would love to have you over for tea,” Edna told Eloise. “Thank you, “ Edna replied, assuring her she would come. And then added, “I will pray for your speedy recovery every night.” And with those words Eloise departed. It’s amazing what can blossom from manure. There are some who allow manure to fall on them and do nothing. But then there are others-like Eloise -who “turn the other cheek” when abused or in this case “turn over the soil” to make something new like those bevy of beautiful red roses that opened a white woman’s heart. ~~ -All love in isolation from Miami Beach, Florida, -Al
After hearing you l will get a book or two of your poems. I had the great opportunity to hear Robert Frost read his poems at Tufts. University when I was 13. He signed my book and I still have it.
Someone must have told her the story of my 21st year, and then she wrote "The Journey". Sometimes I wonder how I would be different if it all hadn't been so darn hard.
I find it strange to have never know of Mary or her art until just now only because of this funny modern media or tik tok and it’s pretty edits being moved to ours she her works for myslef
A quality small press mag to submit to is a publication titled “Rattle” Each issue features a section on prize winning and runner-up poems. I would like to share the following runner-up and when I read it, I fell in love with it. It was written by Diana Goetsch and was published in Rattle’s 2008 Issue #30. I hope you don’t mind me sharing the poem which I consider one of my favorites and hope you enjoy. ** WRITER IN RESIDENCE, CENTRAL STATE I’m writing this from nowhere. Oklahoma if you care. It’s not south, not west, not really Midwest. Think of a hairless Chihuahua on the shoulder of Texas, make an X, I’m in the middle, in an apartment above the dumpsters on a parking lot across from a football stadium. The shriveled leaves of what passes for autumn scuttle across the blacktop. Prairie Striders stand under cars saying Hey fuck you to French pluperfects in the pines. I’ve renamed the birds. They don’t seem to mind. In Oklahoma when you say a word like pluperfect, somehow you’re certain no one in the state has used it that day. Sometimes the parking lot feels like a lake, a lake with light towers and cars on top of it. Sometimes I see an Indian burial ground under there. You don’t think of asphalt as earth, but if they paved the entire prairie-which seems to be the plan-it would still curve with the horizon and shine in the sun. And no matter where you are, if you let the world quiet down you’ll start to hear the most terrible things about yourself. But then, like a teenager, it’ll tire of cursing and deliver you into the silence of graves. You’ll look out on the world and see yourself looking out. Now I know when monks retreat to the charnel ground and stay there long enough, the demons tire of shouting. No battles, no spells: you wait for them to cry themselves to sleep. If everyone were healed and well and all neuroses gone, would there be anything left to write about? Maybe just weather and death. I’d like to die on a mountain in winter in New Hampshire, the one the old man climbed, having decided his natural time was done. How alive he must have been during that short series of lasts-last step, last look around, bend of the waist, head on the ground, the soundless closing of his lids. How easy to be in love with the earth, breathing the crystalline air as he shivered and yawned and let the night take him home. Back in New York City there’s a book of Freud high on a shelf that presided over far too much. The past, it kept insisting, the past. There was also a mouse, who came out whenever I was still and quiet for long enough. She’d sniff my foot, go to the floor-length mirror, then drag her long tail into the kitchen. At first I set a trap. Then I knew her to be the secret life of my apartment, witness to everything without comment, her visit my reward for keeping still, for praying in a closet as Jesus advised. Don’t worry, said a woman last winter. I can see you’re worried. She had the wrinkled eyes of an old Cherokee, and spoke of past lives without a trace of contrivance. The silence here on weekends is so total it holds me. Even when the stadium is full, I don’t hear the people, just the PA telling who tackled who-who in Oklahoma was born and raised and fed and coached to deliver a game-saving hit. I don’t know where I will be or what I will do next year, but five miles underground in the womb of the earth there is no money, no lack of money, no decisions about dinner or weekends, friends or enemies, no stacks of unanswered mail. I’m trying to live there, so I can live here. -from Rattle #30 Winter 2009 Honorable Mention __________ Diana Goetsch: “I’m basically a love poet. I’ve started to understand that after all these years. No matter the subject, I think my mission has something to do with redemption. And I just go for the hardest thing to redeem.” Al
I don’t know exactly where you can directly find it but I have memorized 10 lines of it for a English Project When death comes Like a hungry bear in autumn When death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse. To buy me, and snaps the purse shut. When death comes Like the measle pox When death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades I want to walk through the door full of curiosity wondering What is it going to be like; that cottage of darkness?
There is a beautiful understanding of that is the instrument of and mercies of 🧬 life a twisted lattice to around and of the fats of our wobbly cracked crawling gray clay to be folded in to the core
I fall asleep to this recording about three times a week. Thank you for sharing, and endless thanks to Mary Oliver for assuaging my anxieties when I can’t sleep.
I do the same thing
@@celestedallas3579 💜
I am listening to this utube mary oliver video 4am soothing aah
Me too. I’ve been lying awake for two hours and finally gave up trying to sleep. Mary Is a tonic to my soul.
Doing the same (portuguese in Portugal 🇵🇹). United by Mary Oliver’s uniqueness 🙏♥️
From A Thousand Mornings:
1:26 Percy
2:42 I Go Down to the Shore
3:35 I Have Decided
4:34 The Way of the World
5:27 The Mockingbird
7:41 Hum Hum
11:33 Hurricane
13:26 After I Fall Down the Stairs at the Golden Temple
13:57 Three Things to Remember
Her older poems:
14:36 Wild Geese
16:10 The Summer Day
17:55 The Journey
19:45 Tecumseh
22:08 When I Am Among the Trees
From A Thousand Mornings (again):
24:08 On Traveling to Beautiful Places
25:25 Tides
Her older poems (again):
26:48 Blue Iris
28:20 Meadowlark Sings, And I Greet Him In Return
29:32 The Man Who has Many Answers
30:01 Mornings at Blackwater
From A Thousand Mornings:
32:15 For I Will Consider My Dog Percy
35:30 The First Time Percy Came Back
36:39 Life Story
39:38 White Heron Rises Over Blackwater
40:50 Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night
ashlyn whittington many thanks for this useful information I wish the ppl who upload videos like this do this it makes the work more inclusive for all
Thank you!
Thank you so much for this!!
thank you so much!!
Thank you so much for this...allows me to go back and hear her precious voice...at just the right intersections...
Just like trees, your poems save me, daily. Thank you, Mary.
"Wild Geese" - the antidote to both of the everythings. Thank you dear Mary Oliver.
Drove around LA for 30 minutes, listening to the second half and sobbing. What a life's work, what gifts
♡♡♡♡
I hope you got wherever you were going safely. ❤️
I can not with this stupidity ,keep hoping I guess.
I suppose I could away with it if you’re genuinely as lonely as you sound.
You instantly seem like the type to have more pictures of pets than children.
Wait, strike that ,no way you have kids.
Where has she been all my life? I am age 64, and I LOVE Her! She is hilarious, and so beautifully a writer, which warms my heart and makes me SMILE again.
I'm 78. It seems I've missed out on many years of poetry. Haven't read anything later than T.S. Eliot, whose poetry I dislike. Was turned off to 20th-21st Century poetry for many years, without trying more.
Thank you for letting us hear her read her poems. Such a treasure! May she continue to write poetry wherever she is.
She's in heaven rn
@@prathmeshbagul8579 that is why she said “wherever she is”
My favorite poet. I seem to find one of her poems just when I need them. Thank you Mary, for your lovely words and the light and hope you have left in my life.
She’s easily my favorite poet and I’d never heard her voice until now
What an absolute gift for the grieving. Thank you.
Mary is an extraordinary poet! I love her book "The Songs of Dogs" - What a gift she is to us!
I never read or heard your poetry until now. It's so beautiful. It made my heart ache with its beauty and insight. It made me wish I had known of you before, for the world would have felt lovelier with you in it. Thank you to you in Heaven, Mary. You have touched my heart.
I too have only yesterday found these words written by such a beautiful soul. Thankfully
@@jeanneryani just found it today :)) she’s finding new people to inspire everyday even after she’s gone
She is so hilarious! I have tears from laughing throughout her reading. My first time watching and I love her 😍
Humble, humorous, genius poet. Mary. My forever muse, now one with nature, which she revered with such emotionally accessible eloquence ...♡
I’m super happy to be able to listen to Mary Oliver, one of my very favorite poet♥️. Lol she is funny 🥰🥰🥰
This audience. Occasional applause for a life of writing? Every poem is worthy. Clap, say your appreciation.
They were probably eating. (God forbid.)
I’ve just found her and she’s changed my life
Though we may be sad that she is no longer with us, she continues to show us her old truth, her old love, her old sadness, her old delights, and the depth of her old thoughts; the heavens are rejoicing to have her and continue to laugh and cry with her, to enjoy her new love, her new sadness, her new delight and the meaningful depth of her new thoughts.
To be grateful for her singular gift , her singular voice that has amazed me for so long, and now she has gone , no tears we have the poems and in that light we shine. Paulfitz
She was such a gift to this world
Your life has been a gift to us all. You are dearly missed, and now you rest is the deep silence while we cry.
❤️
Such honesty intertwined with such peace and acceptance.
Thank you, Mary Oliver for leaving us your beautiful poetry. Godspeed.
Dearest Mary Oliver, what a gift to share from which the heart expands.
I thank her and the world that made her for such moments of beauty and clarity preserved in her words
Listening to this in London on my commute to work. What a beautiful wonderful poet
One of my favourite poets. Thank you so much for sharing these.
This is free therapy for me. What a gift. Thank you.
Dearest Mary my heart bursts into praise and gratitude through the grief
Grateful to have just now found this beautiful woman and heard her eloquent words. Thank you!
I'm right there with you. I'm not sure I can get enough of her. Thank you!
RIP dearest Mary.
What a joyful thing it is to hear Mary read her own delightfully beautiful poems! 💓
I miss this energy every day.
So Craft so Skilled can smell it touch it feel it bc her skill is Common for all. Love this.
Thank you Mary, for your poetry is so uplifting with a touch of wonderful humor ..
I have just discovered this poet and it is lovely!!
Where are you, Mary?
This morning I stood at the edge of the lake, now slushy with February's moody thaw.
The wild geese were already there
of course.
And as I attempted to apply
a zen lens to my life
and seek to alter
not people or
circumstances
but the way I see them
and how I reply,
it occurs to me that there
are no answers.
Not really.
There is only the sitting still.
The process..the journey
and those concepts which
I made complicated for so damn long.
There is only one energy.
One life.
And as you queried;
'What do you plan to do with it?'
Oh Mary.
I have so many plans.
And dreams, frustrated.
And so often feel paralyzed and inept.
What do you want..and what do you have?
I envision you asking.
I want what I already have.
I have this life. This day.
I have the smiles
of my reedy toddler grandson.
He is growing into all his curiosity and questions, too.
And I have
the juiciness of the gurgling newer boy;
a little apple dumpling of a human.
I have this cup of coffee,
morning elixir
clutched in my sleepy hand.
I have the lyrical gift of Joni on constant rotation, providing a soundtrack for every feeling.
I have two chubby gray cats, who provide soul-healing-
who show me
every day
how to lazily lounge around in the sunny spots, and purr.
I have books to read, and poems to write.
And nature.
Nature gives to us all, and asks no questions.
I suspect that is why you revered it so.
Mary,
when you transitioned
to the other side,
it was if the cornucopia of your mind and heart fell off a ledge and spilled out.
And I am like a hungry bird, digesting your every word.
I have the twin gifts
of inspiration
and interest.
May I share them as freely as you did,
and still do.
I have thankfulness to no longer seek
the lying solace of drink.
I have the gift of words,
and the ability to finally
clearly think.
Where are you flying to today, Mary?
Or, more likely,
are you just meandering on the edge of a mossy marsh somewhere...
scribbling in your worn, tiny notebook,
penning paens to bullfrogs
and that which leaps, crawls,
and takes flight.
Are you smiling your sly grin
like you do ~
as the morning mist kisses you?
I think you are.
2/8/19
Gigi Dayz Nicely done! I can sense you love and appreciation for Ms Oliver.
I Just found poetry but I think it’s finding me.
I want what I already have !
Did you write this yourself??? I love it
This was glorious. A true apretiation indeed.
Beautiful.
What a joy seeing and hearing your poems even though your physical being is not with us. Now when I read your book, I can hear your voice and be with you; how lovely, thank you 🙏
walking in her words
finding nature and insights
new roads to travel
it’s so nice to hear her voice.
Forever in our hearts
Thankful for sharing the genius of Mary Oliver. 💐
Universal thinking for all who hear that prayer.
감사해요 메리올리버 🙏🏻
Poetry is so profound 🥲 how she reclaims her soul ❤
Mary Oliver had me at 'I never apologise'!
Thank you for publishing this today!
This women has my Deceased mother's voice. She gave me goosebumps just hearing her. Love it.
This video is a real treasure
Lovely to see this. Thanks so much for sharing!
I like the ‘old’ works
Love each one, Betsey
Hearing her for the first time, I was surprised and delighted by the humor. Her poems seem so serious.
Such a generous gift.🙏🏽
This is a treasure. Thank you!
Beautiful poems
Thank you, Mary Oliver.
thank you.
This is just perfect. Thank you
"wild geese" is the most beautiful thing i've heard in my life.
22:06 is the best poem i have ever heard
So beautiful, Mary Oliver.
Thank you thank you thank you for this
Wonderful.
💕nice video,
thanks for sharing👍
Gracias.
I read the biography of Tecumseh. He banned alcohol because it weakend his people, .he started an alphabet in his own language hoping all tribes could have the same language. He worked tirelessly to unite the tribes of southeast. The tribes of course were told any land west of the Ohio River would be theirs in perpetuity.
Love your beautiful poems
That reading of wild geese... Shivers!
She is so Cool!
A wonder! Thanks poetess
Only Mary can read her poems as they should be read. She has a calming influence strong enough to scare Satan . Thank you my God ,for giving us Mary ...you knew we needed her 🤍
Brief Bio:
I’m Al Fogel born in 1945 and at an early age began writing poems. In 1962 I was introduced to a neighbor who just returned from Avatar Meher Baba’s “ East west” gathering and handed me a book titled “The Everything and the Nothing” that included brief but powerful passages by Meher Baba that touched me deeply and i became a “ Baba Lover” I continued writing poems and in 2010 while on Jane Reichhold’s AHA website workshopping poems I befriended a Chinese man who helped me perfect my Senryu and Haibun.
Subsequently I am now considered one of the nations leading authorities on Tanka , Senryu, and Haibun.
Here are some examples of each of my specialties
senryu
~
dentist chair
the hygienist removes
my Bluetooth
~
Internet argument
all his words in CAPS
hers in EMOTICONS
~
after the divorce
he spends more time
at the dollar store
~
damsel in distress
clarke kent still searching
for a phone booth
~
cauliflower ears
once a contender
now boxing vegetables
~
under
the influence -
moonshine
~
Audubon sale
all variety of seeds. . .
early birds welcome
~
Buddhist fortune cookie
the unfolded paper reads
“ better luck next birth!”
~
sudden downpour. . .
the adults run
for shelter
** as you can see, senryu is usually humorous, but it can also be serious. For example, the following two of mine are horrific and heartbreaking ( dealing with the Holocaust):
~
cattle cars
between the slats
human eyes
~
stutthof -
the stench of burnt hair
from the chimneys
~
Tanka ( I already posted the Jackson Pollock one about painting his face but here’s another Tanka
~
Here is another Tanka:
thrift store purchase
inside the leather jacket
a tarnished half-heart
~
Haibuns
The Mathematics of Retribution
“Karma is i fathomable,”
I inform her
It’s late and our conversation turns heavy
“ Seems simple to me, “my girlfriend responds.
“If I murder you, then it’s reasonable that I will be murdered in this or another life to balance the ledger.”
“ Not necessarily so” I’m quick to rejoin.
“What if you murdered me in this life
because I murdered you in a prior life
karmic debts and dues are now equalized.”
“But what if I get caught and I go to jail for life. Where’s the equal payback in that?”
“As I said, karma is unfathomable.”
We continue discussing reincarnation and then add the possibilities of “group karma” to the mix
Finally, at about midnight, we fall asleep
Stutthof -
the stench of burnt hair
from the chimneys
~~
Mama
There were days when I pretended to be too sick to go to school - - just for mamas loving embrace -her arms the heat of home
Even with the onset of dementia, her cheerfulness was so contagious it was a joy being around her despite the illness.
She made everyone laugh with her spontaneous unpredictable behavior.
nursing home
bumper wheelchair
her favorite pastime
Once a week I would whisk her away from the assisted-living facility and we would spend several hours together -grabbing a meal or frequenting some of her favorite second-hand stores where she loved to shop and donate clothes.
When we drove to her favorite thrift in November, her dementia worsened.
thrift store
the dress mama donated
she wants to buy
On a cold December morn mama passed.
The funeral was simple. There was a light drizzle as the family gathered at the gravesite. One by one, with eyes full of rain, we said our last goodbyes.
autumn twilight -
oh mama tuck me under
hug me one more time
~
‘Round Midnight
It was a huge ballroom on the top floor of a building on Broadway --an important midtown crossroads in the heart of the Great White Way.
My uncle still talks with reverence about how -in his heyday -he would travel by rail to the corner of Lenox and walk inside to the beat of jungle music. Who knew what to expect? One night you might be listening with rapt attention to Theloneous Monk and Dizzy Gillespie the godfathers of bebop in their signature beret caps, or the Nicholas Brothers flashing their wild acrobatic spins and splits, or enchanted by the sweet taste of Brown Sugar -with Bojangles out front. And when the Bird was in flight, even the moon was not high enough.
But in 1940 the ballroom closed its doors to make way for a commercial housing development and another kind of night.
new Harlem
the a-train replaced
by the bullet
~
Atlantic City New Jersey
I had just graduated from high school
I remember stopping for saltwater taffy -as evening journeyed slowly into night. Nearing curfew, we sat on a protruded sandy enclave--holding hands, looking out at the ocean, not saying much. In the distance the lights from an ocean liner flickered as the night kept coming on in...
first “french kiss”
under the boardwalk
“over the moon!”
~~
All love,
Al
Very much enjoyed your poems and reading. Your unique imagery engaged me throughout.
I, too, am a poet ( and also a fiction story writer which I’ll elaborate shortly but for now let me say I write mostly Japanese format poems i.e. haiku , senryu, tanka/kyoka, haibun etc. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a Tanka and a haiku dedicated to Matshuo Bashō’s frog with added insightful commentary by the late AHA founder and poet Jane Reichhold who considered my haiku among her 10 favorite haiku of all time! What an honor.
Here’s the Bashō poem with Jane Reichhold’ insightful insightful commentary:
Bashō’s frog
four hundred years
of ripples
At first the idea of picking only 10 of my favorite haiku seemed a rather
daunting task. How could I review all the haiku I have read in my life and
decide that there were only 10 that were outstanding? Then realized I was already getting a steady stream of excellent haiku day by day through the AHA forum.
The puns and write-offs based on Basho's most famous haiku are so
numerous I would have said that nothing new could be said with this
method, but here Al Fogel proved me wrong. Perhaps part of my delight in this haiku lies in the fact that I agree with him. Here he is saying one thing about realism-ripples are on a pond after a frog jumps in, but because it refers back to Basho and his famous haiku, he is also saying something about the haiku and authors who have followed him. We, and our work, are just ripples while Basho holds the honor of inventing the idea of the sound of a frog leaping is the sound of water
As haiku spreads around the world, making ripples in more and larger
ponds, its ripples are wider-including us all. But his last word reminds us
that we are ripples and our lives ephemeral. It will be the frogs that will remain.
~~
Now the tanka:
returning home from
a Jackson Pollock
exhibition
I smear paint on my face
and turn into art
~~
Finally, the fictional story that I alluded to earlier. It not only should appeal to Afro-Americans but all individual and groups that experience racial discrimination. It is based on a true incident that took place in the 1950s when racial prejudice was rampant. My story has an unexpected heartwarming ending that coincides with my own belief akin to Dr Martin Luther King’s in a non-violent approach and resolution to racial injustice Titled “ Eloise , Edna And The Chicken Coop”
ELOISE, EDNA & THE CHICKEN COOP
There was once a Black lady named Eloise who inherited from her grandmother a parcel of land in the suburbs of Compton California at a time when there was strong racial prejudice against women of color-especially those Black women who owned property in predominately white neighborhoods.
It happened there lived adjacent to Eloise’s land a white woman named Edna who did not like the fact that this Black woman owned land next to hers.
Eloise would try to be friendly because she believed Jesus when He said “Love Thy Neighbor” and to Eloise that meant even if your neighbor was unfriendly.
But whenever Eloise saw Edna, Edna would turn her back in disdain. In fact, ever since her husband died a decade ago, Edna became mean and unfriendly to everyone in the neighborhood.
But to Eloise, she was so hateful and full of animosity that one night when all the lights in Eloise home were off Edna went to her own backyard where she kept her chicken coop and gathered up all the manure and dumped it on Eloise land and upon her tomatoes and her greens and everything she was growing, in an attempt to destroy it.
And when Eloise realized the next morning that there was all this manure, instead of becoming angry, she decided to rake and mix it in with the soil and use it as fertilizer.
Every night Edna would dump the manure from her chicken coop litter box and Eloise would get up in the morning and turn it over and mix it.
This went on for almost a month until one morning Eloise noticed there was no manure in her yard.
Then one of the neighbors informed Eloise that Edna had fallen ill. But because Edna was so mean and unfriendly , no one came to see her when she was sick.
But when Eloise heard about Edna’s condition she picked the best flowers from her garden, walked to Edna’s house , knocked on her front door and when Edna opened the door, she was in complete shock that this Black Woman who she had been so cruel to, would be the only neighbor to visit
her and bring flowers.
Edna was deeply moved by Eloise kindness.
Then Eloise handed the flowers to Edna who said,
“These are the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen! Where’d you get them?”
Eloise replied,
“You helped me make them, Edna, because when you were dumping in my yard, I decided to plant some roses and use your manure as fertilizer.“
This genuine act of kindness opened the floodgate of Edna’s heart that had been closed for so long.
“When I’m feeling better, I would love to have you over for tea,” Edna told Eloise.
“Thank you, “ Edna replied, assuring her she would come. And then added, “I will pray for your speedy recovery every night.”
And with those words Eloise departed.
It’s amazing what can blossom from manure.
There are some who allow manure to fall on them and do nothing.
But then there are others-like Eloise -who “turn the other cheek” when abused or in this case “turn over the soil” to make something new like those bevy of beautiful red roses that opened a white woman’s
heart.
~~
-All love in isolation from Miami Beach, Florida,
-Al
After hearing you l will get a book or two of your poems. I had the great opportunity to hear Robert Frost read his poems at Tufts. University when I was 13. He signed my book and I still have it.
"What is it you plan to do woth your one wild precious life?"
Robert Frost one foot further
"Determined to save the only life you can"-better than a mullion thetapists
Reflection of that agless love for familiar seasons and self known reasons
Someone must have told her the story of my 21st year, and then she wrote "The Journey". Sometimes I wonder how I would be different if it all hadn't been so darn hard.
14:42
22:02 When I am among the trees …
There is power in the waves and movements of the tides good graves. . . The magical magnet pull of the moon reflecting likenesses of passing age. . .
I find it strange to have never know of Mary or her art until just now only because of this funny modern media or tik tok and it’s pretty edits being moved to ours she her works for myslef
💜
In the water there are the stones flown over
❤❤❤
i have listened to this an irresponsible amount of times
Cheryl ..
❤
Wah
Our dogs and pets an extension of us. . . A great responsibility are they not dependant on us as are we
Can anyone explain a prose poem?
A quality small press mag to submit to is a publication titled “Rattle”
Each issue features a section on prize winning and runner-up poems. I would like to share the following runner-up and when I read it, I fell in love with it. It was written by Diana Goetsch and was published in Rattle’s 2008 Issue #30. I hope you don’t mind me sharing the poem which I consider one of my favorites and hope you enjoy.
**
WRITER IN RESIDENCE, CENTRAL STATE
I’m writing this from nowhere. Oklahoma
if you care. It’s not south, not west, not really
Midwest. Think of a hairless Chihuahua
on the shoulder of Texas, make an X,
I’m in the middle, in an apartment
above the dumpsters on a parking lot
across from a football stadium.
The shriveled leaves of what passes
for autumn scuttle across the blacktop.
Prairie Striders stand under cars saying Hey
fuck you to French pluperfects in the pines.
I’ve renamed the birds. They don’t seem to mind.
In Oklahoma when you say a word
like pluperfect, somehow you’re certain
no one in the state has used it that day.
Sometimes the parking lot feels like a lake,
a lake with light towers and cars on top of it.
Sometimes I see an Indian burial ground
under there. You don’t think of asphalt as earth,
but if they paved the entire prairie-which
seems to be the plan-it would still curve
with the horizon and shine in the sun.
And no matter where you are, if you let
the world quiet down you’ll start to hear
the most terrible things about yourself.
But then, like a teenager, it’ll tire of cursing
and deliver you into the silence of graves.
You’ll look out on the world and see
yourself looking out. Now I know
when monks retreat to the charnel ground
and stay there long enough, the demons
tire of shouting. No battles, no spells: you wait
for them to cry themselves to sleep.
If everyone were healed and well
and all neuroses gone, would there
be anything left to write about?
Maybe just weather and death.
I’d like to die on a mountain in winter
in New Hampshire, the one the old man
climbed, having decided his natural time
was done. How alive he must have been
during that short series of lasts-last step,
last look around, bend of the waist,
head on the ground, the soundless closing
of his lids. How easy to be in love
with the earth, breathing the crystalline air
as he shivered and yawned
and let the night take him home.
Back in New York City there’s a book
of Freud high on a shelf that presided
over far too much. The past, it kept
insisting, the past. There was also a mouse,
who came out whenever I was still
and quiet for long enough. She’d sniff
my foot, go to the floor-length mirror,
then drag her long tail into the kitchen.
At first I set a trap. Then I knew her
to be the secret life of my apartment,
witness to everything without comment,
her visit my reward for keeping still,
for praying in a closet as Jesus advised.
Don’t worry, said a woman last winter.
I can see you’re worried. She had the wrinkled
eyes of an old Cherokee, and spoke of past
lives without a trace of contrivance.
The silence here on weekends is so total
it holds me. Even when the stadium
is full, I don’t hear the people, just the PA
telling who tackled who-who in Oklahoma
was born and raised and fed and coached
to deliver a game-saving hit. I don’t
know where I will be or what I will do
next year, but five miles underground
in the womb of the earth there is
no money, no lack of money, no decisions
about dinner or weekends, friends
or enemies, no stacks of unanswered mail.
I’m trying to live there, so I can live here.
-from Rattle #30 Winter 2009 Honorable Mention
__________
Diana Goetsch: “I’m basically a love poet. I’ve started to understand that after all these years. No matter the subject, I think my mission has something to do with redemption. And I just go for the hardest thing to redeem.”
Al
LOVe=== Grace Paley.
Contrasts of gray pale shadows
Anyone know where I can find her reading "When Death Comes"?
I don’t know exactly where you can directly find it but I have memorized 10 lines of it for a English Project
When death comes
Like a hungry bear in autumn
When death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse.
To buy me, and snaps the purse shut.
When death comes
Like the measle pox
When death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades
I want to walk through the door full of curiosity wondering
What is it going to be like; that cottage of darkness?
If we meet him we will know him he will still be so angry
There is a beautiful understanding of that is the instrument of and mercies of 🧬 life a twisted lattice to around and of the fats of our wobbly cracked crawling gray clay to be folded in to the core
I grieve her death as I celebrate her life! E. Murphy
Nhi
Yhe scents of known yesteryears and then