When Mary Oliver met Stanley Kunitz

Or, The Man Who Sold the Earth

In search of Mary Oliver

One of the most joyful experiences I’ve had since opening the frontiers of the English Republic of Letters has been the post I wrote on Mary Oliver. The post came from a real sense of inquiry. I had two basic questions, one important and the second more of a reflection for myself: Why was Mary Oliver’s poetry so loved by so many people, and why hadn’t I heard of her? 

I began with a confession: Before I came to Substack, I hadn’t read a single line by Mary Oliver.

I soon found I’d hit a nerve: it is my most commented-on post. More importantly, the flow of love towards Oliver’s poetry was moving, as was the generosity of readers eager to share their favourite books or poems and why they liked her so much. “I love her/Mary” were the words or sentiment of many readers.

A few readers also chimed in to share that they hadn’t heard of her until recently. ‘It’s as if Mary Oliver is a “best kept secret” American poet,’ said one.  

I was thrilled to get a comment from a former student of Oliver,

Summer Brennan

who really helped to set me straight: “A few of her poems have become popular in mindfulness and yoga type circles, and a lot of people have not bothered to learn much about her beyond that, but her topics are so much broader and deeper. She was …one of the best, most bullshit-free people I have ever known. I hope you'll look at her earlier work especially.”

I started with two books from the 1980s that were my readers’ consensus recommendations; American Primitive and Dream Work. After I’d read them, all doubts and questions were utterly dispelled.

Here was a poet I knew I’d enjoy forever. 

The Wild and Shapeless Air

There was a special sign, too. Her poem Stanley Kunitz—for me, one of the best by her I’ve read so far—caught my attention. In part, that was because of the gorgeous language:

I think of him there

Raking and trimming, stirring up

Those sheets of fire

Between the smothering weights of earth,

The wild and shapeless air.

I mean, this is just outrageously beautiful as well as being a superb extended metaphor for writing poetry—those “sheets of fire!” If she’d written nothing else, Oliver would surely remain a wonderful poet on the strength of these lines alone.

But there was a special connection with my past, too. As I wrote here there was a particular anthology of poetry that started me off on my love for poetry, especially modern poetry. In that anthology, which was on order when I drafted the post but which is now safely in my hands, there’s a wonderful poem by Kunitz, The War Against the Trees, which I loved when I read it as a fourteen-year-old boy.

The Man Who Sold the World

It’s a powerful piece, sad and angry but also witty and wry, and full of sumptuous phrases. You can read it here. For me, the poem retains its freshness, and its sardonic message about the depredations of the earth for profit has stayed sadly relevant. 

I saw the ghosts of children at their games

Racing beyond their childhood in the shade,         

And while the green world turned its death-foxed page

And a red wagon wheeled,

I watched them disappear

Into the suburbs of their grievous age.

Kunitz’s poem begins with the memorable line, “The man who sold his lawn to Standard Oil.” I read this a few years after devouring David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World” album in my pre-teens (it was released in 1971 in the UK). That was another link. What I've since discovered is that Bowie’s words also echo the title of a story from DC Comics from 1954, The Man Who Sold the Earth.” I’d long been a fan of those magazines.

As a fan of DC Comics, David Bowie, Stanley Kunitz, and now Mary Oliver, this is a pretty rich line of associations for me to follow. I find myself, in Oliver’s words, “raking and trimming” the ideas that fall like leaves from researching and writing my essays.