… and still the [redacted]s keep dying on me! It was bad enough when Mary Oliver died in January. Then WS Merwin and Linda Gregg in March. And then Les Murray (April 29th, although I found out much later). And Stanley Plumly, also in April, who I’d corresponded with from time to time when I …
Goodbye, Aunt Leaf
I’ve just found out that Mary Oliver is dead. At 83, of lymphoma. Actually she died a week ago, last Thursday 17 January 2019, so I’m late to the news. It feels so strange. She was a poet whose work I love, whose poems I quote often, yet I haven’t bought a book of hers …
Mary Oliver, appositives, and fossicking through “Aunt Leaf”
I do love Mary Oliver's poems, but I'm always nervous when I start reading a new collection. Her writing is becoming ever more stripped back, and relies on the rightness of her observations, rather than dazzling bravado with imagery. But there are plenty of exceptions to that rule, especially in her earlier poems. One that …
Continue reading "Mary Oliver, appositives, and fossicking through “Aunt Leaf”"
A Dark Feathered Art 