[peaceful review] Woods & Words: The Story of Poet Mary Oliver by Sara Holly Ackerman and Naoko Stoop

December 5, 2025December 4, 2025 ~ jama ~ 25 Comments

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.” ~ Mary Oliver

Beloved American poet Mary Oliver is well known for her sensitive, pure-hearted observations of the natural world, but did you know she credited her love of nature and poetry with saving her life?

Thanks to Woods & Words: The Story of Mary Oliver by Sara Holly Ackerman and Naoko Stoop (Beach Lane Books, 2025), young readers will learn how a lonely girl survived a difficult childhood by finding refuge in the woods and writing about the wonders she found there. Her lifelong practice of walking in the wild and treating poetry as central to her very existence would earn her literary acclaim, but more importantly, the rare status of being a popular, best-selling poet in an otherwise poetry-indifferent age.

We first see young Mary in the woods, crouched in a grass-and-sticks hut she had stitched herself, “noticing” treasures like birdsong, velvet leaves, and “a glittering beam of light.”

Whenever she felt confined by classroom walls, she made the woods her school. There, she wrote, filling stacks of notebooks, alone except for books by favorite poets like Poe, Blake, and Whitman.

The spring after graduating from high school, Mary drove to Steepletop in upstate New York, where she stayed in an old farmhouse where the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay once lived. She helped Edna’s sister organize papers and “wrapped herself in woods and words. What more could she ask for?”

One day, Mary saw a visitor at the kitchen table — it was love at first sight! Mary and Molly became inseparable, capturing the world around them, Mary with her words, Molly with her camera.

They eventually settled in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Mary continued to walk the woods or along the shore, searching for poems: “There were always poems if you paid attention,” whether under leaves, on the backs of black snakes, or prompted by the sweet or rotten smells she encountered. She carried a pocket notebook and stashed pencils in trees so she’d always be ready.

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nine cool things on a tuesday

October 7, 2025October 5, 2025 ~ jama ~ 24 Comments

“October is the treasure of the year,/And all the months pay bounty to her store . . . ” ~ Paul Laurence Dunbar

1. Happy October!! Surely the prettiest fall month. Poland-based artist Asia Spettel’s cozy “cottagecore” paintings are the perfect way to celebrate the season.

I couldn’t find any information online about her other than she works mainly in acrylics and enjoys imagining herself in the scenes she paints.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind sitting on that porch sipping tea and nibbling on cake, or hanging out in this lakeside kitchen with soup bubbling on the stove, a plate of cinnamon rolls and a copy of Wuthering Heights on the table. My kind of place! It’s so much fun studying all the details.

Don’t you love the beautiful rustic colors and the animals that wander through her pictures (fox is my favorite)? Of course her table settings, filled with fruit and baked treats, are what caught my eye in the first place. 🙂 In these crazy times, Asia’s work provides much needed comfort and solace.

You can purchase originals, prints, and postcards featuring Asia’s work at her Etsy Shop. Other places to enjoy her online: FB Page and Instagram.

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[beachy review] My Poet by Patricia MacLachlan and Jen Hill

November 11, 2022November 11, 2022 ~ jama ~ 32 Comments

“I have great respect for children. And I have great respect for their ability as writers.” ~ Patricia MacLachlan

“Words have not only a definition… but also the felt quality of their own kind of sound.” ~ Mary Oliver

Where do poets find their words?

Young Lucy learns the answer to this question in My Poet, a luminous new picture book by late Newbery Medalist Patricia MacLachlan and illustrator Jen Hill (Katherine Tegen Books, 2022).

One summer day, Lucy and the poet next door – whom she calls “my poet” – explore their seaside town with a shared goal: to find words. Lucy, an aspiring poet, takes along her notebook and pen.

Together, they visit the farmers market, stroll along the beach with the poet’s dogs, meander through the woods by the marsh, and take refuge in a boathouse during a thunderstorm.

Throughout the day, Lucy notes that her poet sees objects differently, describing them in novel ways. A strawberry is a jewel. A stone has a story. Lucy wonders how her poet hears the words she writes about her dogs.

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A Canine Celebration for Mary Oliver’s Birthday

September 10, 2021September 9, 2021 ~ jama ~ 58 Comments

“Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs?” ~ Mary Oliver

Today, in honor of Mary Oliver’s 86th birthday, I’m sharing several tender and affecting tail waggers from Dog Songs (Penguin Press, 2013) and Red Bird (Beacon Press, 2009).

Even now, it’s easy to imagine Mary roaming the woods, fields, and shore with her faithful canine companions Luke, Benjamin, Bear, Sammy, Ricky, and especially Percy, for whom she seemed to have held special affection.

*Mary Oliver with her dog, Ricky, at her home in Hobe Sound, FL (2013)*

Simple, unadorned words, maximum emotional resonance. She wrote about dogs and humans, but it was always about so much more.

PERCY

Our new dog, named for the beloved poet,
ate a book which unfortunately we had
     left unguarded.
Fortunately it was the Bhagavad Gita,
of which many copies are available.
Every day now, as Percy grows
into the beauty of his life, we touch
his wild, curly head and say,

“Oh, wisest of little dogs.”

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poetry friday roundup is here!

May 10, 2018August 24, 2025 ~ jama ~ 37 Comments

“The bluebird carries the sky on his back.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

WELCOME TO POETRY FRIDAY AT ALPHABET SOUP!

Please help yourself to warm blueberry muffins and green tea. 🙂

Something I look forward to every Spring is spying that first flash of blue alighting on a bare branch outside my window. Bluebird!

If the sun’s out, the bluebird’s feathers dazzle. He must know how handsome he is. Before the trees have budded, this show of color offers hope and such joy. It’s amazing how just one little bird in a natty blue coat can transform a landscape.

The bluebird has been considered a harbinger of happiness by many world cultures for thousands of years. On this Mother’s Day weekend, here are bluebird poems by Emily Dickinson and Mary Oliver. I love the shared delight of these two poets, born 105 years apart.

Wishing you the gift of sweet birdsong amid the din, a spot of beauty to light the way, and many happy moments.

THE BLUEBIRD
by Emily Dickinson

Before you thought of spring,
Except as a surmise,
You see, God bless his suddenness,
A fellow in the skies
Of independent hues,
A little weather-worn,
Inspiriting habiliments
Of indigo and brown.

With specimens of song,
As if for you to choose,
Discretion in the interval,
With gay delays he goes
To some superior tree
Without a single leaf,
And shouts for joy to nobody
But his seraphic self!

(1896)

WHAT GORGEOUS THING
by Mary Oliver

I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.

~ from Blue Horses (Penguin Press, 2014)

Now, please leave your links with the dashing Mr. Linky below. I hope you enjoy flitting from blog to blog, sampling all the poetry goodness laid out for the taking. Thank you for joining us this week!