Likely Stories - Devotions

Mary Oliver is an American Poet who won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Devotions is a collection of more than two hundred poems, selected and arranged by the poet herself. Oliver has included poems from all stages of her impressive and influential fifty-year career, spanning from nineteen sixty-three to two thousand fifteen.

I would recommend this poetry collection to poetry lovers, obviously, but also to those who want to read poetry and don’t know where to start. I would also recommend this book to people who love to hike and talk walks, to garden, or birdwatch, people who love animals, and people who enjoy meditating.

Mary Olivers poems are lovely, accessible, comforting reflections on the natural world. I pick up my copy of Devotions every few months to revisit favorites and explore less read sections of the book. Oliver’s poems remind me to step outside, look, listen, and reflect on my place in the natural world.

As my friends and family can attest, if you are nearby when I am reading Mary Oliver’s Devotions, I will likely interrupt whatever you are doing and make you listen as I read Mary Oliver poems aloud. In fact, while I have your attention here on the radio, let me read you the second poem of more than two hundred included in Devotions.

This Morning, By Mary Oliver

This morning the redbirds’ eggs have hatched and already the chicks are chirping for food.

They don’t know where it’s coming from, they just keep shouting, “More! More!”

As to anything else, they haven’t had a single thought.

Their eyes - haven’t yet opened, they know nothing about the sky that’s waiting. Or the thousands, the millions of trees.

They don’t even know they have wings.

And just like that, like a simple neighborhood event, a miracle is taking place.

This poem always makes me think of my babies, crying for more, of their potential, and of everything they have to look forward to and explore in their lives. Mary Olivers poems speak to me, every time I pick up this book, I find poignant connections to whatever stage of life I am in.

I hope you too will enjoy Mary Oliver’s poems, if you are buying Devotions, I recommend purchasing the hardcover, I predict, you too, will be returning to this collection again and again.

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