Devotions by Mary Oliver

Source: The Poetry Foundation

Mary Oliver is not simply “a poet.” 

Her readers are not simply “readers.” 

Through her words we meet together, 

as friends.

Carefully curated, Devotions features Mary Oliver’s stunning work, from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 when she was twenty-eight years old, through one of her more recent collections, Felicity, published in 2015. This poetic garden, “planted” and arranged by (my dear friend) Mary Oliver herself, is blooming with her wise, passionate, and perceptive observations of the natural world. 

This collection, which spans more than five decades of Mary Oliver’s extraordinary career, gives its reader the opportunity to accompany her as she goes through the woods of life.

How I Go To The Woods by Mary Oliver 

(from Swan, 2010)

Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single

friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore

unsuitable. 

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds

or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of

praying, as you no doubt have yours. 

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit

on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,

until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost

unhearable sound of the roses singing. 

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love

you very much.

If what she says in this poem is true, then Mary Oliver must love us, her readers, very much too. By writing about her walks in the woods, or along the shores of a beach, she is taking us with her. It is indeed a metaphorical companionship which we have with her, but it is companionship all the same. I know for a fact that Mary Oliver would understand this type of friendship, because she “told me” so in her essay collection Upstream. 

My Friend Walt Whitman

(an excerpt from Upstream)

…

I never met any of my friends, of course, in a usual way — they were strangers, and lived only in their writing. But if they were only shadow-companions, still they were constant, and powerful, and amazing. That is, they said amazing things, and for me it changed the world. 

I wish I could tell Mary how much her “amazing” words changed the world for me.

When my worries confuse my mind, 

her words remind me who I am.

When the world feels loud and overwhelming, 

her words bring me the serenity of a silent forest.

When time feels like it’s moving too fast, 

the gentle rhythm of her words slow it down. 

When my life is full of boundless joys, 

her words are there to lift me even higher. 

Excerpt from Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

I began reading Devotions in February of 2021, soon after my grandmother passed away. As fate would have it, her name was Marie but everyone called her Mary. 

Last night, on March 29th, 2026, I finished this collection by reading the final poems aloud to my husband, whom I didn’t even know existed back when I first started it, since he and I met in August of 2022. 

This collection, and Mary Oliver herself, has truly been my “shadow-companion” for these past five years. 

Photographer: Molly Malone Cook

Thank you for your friendship Mary, here’s to the next five years, and the next five after that,

and on,

and on,

and on. 

Your friend,

Carolyn Marie Wellstead