“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver (read by Mary Oliver):
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. 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 is an American poet who won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. A standout feature from her poems is the force of nature, rather than the human world, to give meaning and purpose in life. Her writing is simple, filled with natural imagery, and is one of the most influential poets to have lived.
Reading this poem for the first time pushed me to the verge of tears. Here are three takeaways from this short but powerful piece by the late Mary Oliver.
1. Be gentle with yourself
You do not have to be good./ You do not have to walk on your knees/ For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting./ You only have to let the soft animal of your body/ love what it loves.
A restless pursuit of purpose and an innate sense of frustration are two fundamental qualities of the human experience. In times of failure, it is tempting to punish one’s own flaws in the pursuit for moral perfection.
In Wild Geese, Mary Oliver acknowledges this temptation but encourages another approach. With the instruction to …only have to let the soft animal of your body/ love what it loves, Oliver’s message is clear: to turn to nature and follow one’s heart.
Indeed, Oliver’s description of people as soft animals suggests that we simply cannot strive for perfection; that the virtue of life predisposes one to flaws. As Marion Woodman put it, To strive for perfection is to kill love because perfection does not recognize humanity.
2. Nature as steadfast movement
Meanwhile the world goes on./ Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain/ are moving across the landscapes,/ over the prairies and the deep trees,/ the mountains and the rivers.
It’s easy to forget that the world keeps moving even when we stand still.
When I’m bored or tired, I like to go outside and stare at the clouds. It always surprises me how fast the clouds move when you really observe. This practice helps put into perspective where my problems sit in the scope of the Universe and how little they usually matter.
Life and movement is all around us. Perhaps an antidote to the feeling of stagnation and paralysis is to simply surround ourselves with nature – an activity Mary Oliver would undoubtedly encourage.
3. Announcing your place
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.
Here, Mary Oliver marries the reader to nature. Just as one can hear wild geese calling, so too can we hear the world calling us to explore our creativity and unashamedly share our gifts with the world.
Lastly, the last two lines of …announcing your place/ in the family of things promises that our existence has a role to play in the world. That even though our lives can feel lonely, we can find respite in the grandeur of nature.
“I beg you! Be so kind! Just favour me and taste it!” Neighbor, I pray you, do not press me!” Change your mind. Another spoonful; do not waste it; This fish-soup is the thing, ’tis luscious, capital.” “I’ve swallowed now three portions.” “What of that? no matter, Come now, no foolish chatter, Think of your health, and eat it all; “Tis soup indeed, with many a ball As if fine amber beads had hither chanced to fall! Quick eat it, oh! my comrade dearest, Here’s bream, with giblets nice; here’s sturgeon where it’s clearest; Another little morsel? Wife, upon him call!”
Warm-hearted friend Demyan thus urges Phoka keenly, Allows him never respite, smiles serenely. Sweat starts, on Phoka’s face, to gather as might rain, Nevertheless, he lets himself be helped again, Making an effort, though a drear one, Finishes all. “Ah, you’re the sort I love!” Remarks Demyan, “You’re not an appetite above!” “Another little plateful? Come then, oh, my dear one!” But Phoka, hot and red, Though liking fish-soup much, had grown a prey to dread, And, fur cap grasping, painfully gasping, Uprose without delay and fled; And, since, to friend Demyan no word has said.
Author! however blest, because true gifts possessing, If you are prone to wander, many times digressing, And grow by prolix ways distressing, Know that your glorious prose, or transcendental verse Becomes a blight and is then too much fish-soup worse.
Demyan’s Fish Soup is a fable by Russian fabulist and author Ivan Krylov. While the story seems fun and innocent enough, here are some takeaways that are uncovered after further inspection:
1. Beware the overbearers
If you are prone to wander, many times digressing,/ And grow by prolix ways distressing,/ Know that your glorious prose… / Becomes a blight and is then too much fish-soup worse.
It’s often tempting to find something good and want to share it with the world. Wonderful! Everybody has insights worth sharing and they very well should.
But how it’s done really matters. If you push your insights in an overbearing manner, you run the risk of scaring the turtle back into its shell. A person who was willing to hear you out might close off; unable to deal with your pompousness. Even worse, you could hurt someone who would’ve happily gone ahead with your suggestion if not for your mannerisms.
The intent to do right is not enough. The delivery matters.
2.Excess ruins beauty
But Phoka, hot and red, Though liking fish-soup much, had grown a prey to dread,/ And, fur cap grasping, painfully gasping,/ Uprose without delay and fled…
Simple enough, but easy to forget.
Too much of something good isn’t good anymore. Water is good, but too much can drown you. Medications can treat symptoms, but too much leads to iatrogenesis. Social media is fun, but too much can give you with mental scars.
The dose matters.
3. Say “No” early
Sweat starts, on Phoka’s face, to gather as might rain,/ Nevertheless, he lets himself be helped again,/ Making an effort, though a drear one, Finishes all...
Perhaps the saddest part of this story is that everything could’ve been avoided if Phoka just stood up for himself and said, “No dammit, I won’t have any more soup!”. Phoka knew that he had enough but he let himself get swept along anyway.
When you get the feeling that something isn’t quite right, it can be tempting to brush it aside. The justifications are endless; perhaps it’s too much effort to say no, or it would make the situation awkward, or the sunk costs are just too much.
Yet, I have a feeling that Ivan Krylov wanted to leave this story with us as a warning: to either defend yourself and confront immediate discomfort, or to let yourself go and face the consequences of a far greater danger.
“The World is a Beautiful Place” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (read by Lawrence Ferlinghetti):
The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t mind happiness not always being so very much fun if you don’t mind a touch of hell now and then just when everything is fine because even in heaven they don’t sing all the time
The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t mind some people dying all the time or maybe only starving some of the time which isn’t half so bad if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t much mind a few dead minds in the higher places or a bomb or two now and then in your upturned faces or such other improprieties as our Name Brand society is prey to with its men of distinction and its men of extinction and its priests and other patrolmen and its various segregations and congressional investigations and other constipations that our fool flesh is heir to
Yes the world is the best place of all for a lot of such things as making the fun scene and making the love scene and making the sad scene and singing low songs and having inspirations and walking around looking at everything and smelling flowers and goosing statues and even thinking and kissing people and making babies and wearing pants and waving hats and dancing and going swimming in rivers on picnics in the middle of the summer and just generally ‘living it up’
Yes but then right in the middle of it comes the smiling mortician
I stumbled upon this poem in the library after lunch and it immediately captivated me. This piece covers themes of death and ignorance and provides surprising answers to questions on my mind.
Here are three takeaways from this piece by the late Lawrence Ferlinghetti:
1. An imperfect, balanced world
if you don’t mind a touch of hell/ now and then/ just when everything is fine/ because even in heaven/ they don’t sing/ all the time
A key literary device throughout this poem is the juxtaposition between abeautiful place and imagery like hell, dying and bomb; images that aren’t conventionally beautiful.
This suggests that beauty doesn’t mean perfect peace, but balance. Perhaps the beautiful isn’t an abundance of light, but a harmony between the light and dark, that it is only through the darkness that light is revealed.
There is something terrifying an excess of the “beautiful” like happiness or economic prosperity – a concept explored by Huxley’s dystopian Brave New World.
2. Blissful, human ignorance
if you don’t mind some people dying/ all the time/ or maybe only starving/ some of the time/ which isn’t half so bad/ if it isn’t you
We are all the heroes of our own stories.
This ignorance can be comforting in troubling times, with Lawrence juxtaposing the harsh themes of death and starvation with the comfort of it happening to others.
Is this blissful ignorance a criticism of human behaviour? Is it a moral calling to care for others as ourselves? Not necessarily. In the next stanza, Lawrence acknowledges that there are many things that our fool flesh/ is heir to. The word “heir” suggests that this ignorance doesn’t make us bad: it simply makes us human. We cannot be expected to think beyond ourselves.
3. The smiling mortician
Yes/ but then right in the middle of it/ comes the smiling/ mortician
In the second-last stanza, we see free-flowing and rhythmic prose filled with delightful imagery of flowers, dancing and picnics. Furthermore, the whirlwind of bright adjectives illustrate the great activities available to us as citizens of Earth.
But suddenly, Yes/ but then right in the middle of it halts the exciting imagery. And what comes to interrupt the show?
The smiling mortician. The funeral director.
Death is a topic I unconsciously avoid in my mind. It’s much easier to organize your life knowing that you have many years left ahead than to always watch your back. The reality that life can be taken from you at any moment can be endlessly disturbing.
Yet, Lawrence leaves us with one comforting imagery: a smiling mortician. Not a devilish or a sneaky mortician, but a smiling one. This smile could be interpreted any number of ways, but here’s my two cents on what this means:
Let us live in such a way that when the grim reaper comes, he comes with a round of applause at a life well lived.
Mr Ferlinghetti, I hope you smiled back at the mortician, shook his hand and danced. You have made the world a more beautiful place. Rest in peace.
“O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman (read by Tom O’Bedlam):
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
I recently watched Dead Poets Society (1989) and absolutely loved it. The movie emphasizes the importance of both literature and critical thought; two forces that define much of who I am today.
While the movie references many poems, the one that sticks out is this one by Walt Whitman. In Dead Poets Society, “O Captain! My Captain!” is the phrase used by the students to address an unorthodox but inspiring English teacher, Mr. John Keating. I found the symbolism of this piece to the overall plot of the movie to be hauntingly beautiful.
Here are two takeaways from this poem:
1. Winning the war, but at what cost?
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, / The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won…
While “O Captain! My Captain!” was written at a time of celebration with the conclusion of the American Civil War, this poem is also an elegy for President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. As a result, victory and loss are closely intertwined throughout the poem and this juxtaposition illustrates the close nature between victory, and any associated pain.
When one’s fearful trip is done (=success over trials), it might be human instinct to immediately celebrate. However, occasionally one must acknowledge the sacrifices made to get to that position; sacrifices which may have far been too great to be fair.
But O heart! heart! heart! / O the bleeding drops of red, / Where on the deck my Captain lies, / Fallen cold and dead.
Personally, one of the saddest moments of my Undergraduate degree was when I achieved straight H1s for my second year of Biomedicine. It seems like a weird flex, but I felt that the sacrifices I made for my physical and mental health far outweighed the grades that I got. It was ultimately a great lesson on how to prioritise studies though.
2. Individuals vs. the Nation
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, / For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Another juxtaposition found throughout this poem is the distinction between the speaker and the nation’s response. The nation is depicted as being rejoiceful and quickly moving on from any sacrifices made –emphasizing a nation’s wellbeing over an individual’s. However, the speaker is clearly seen to be mourning through the repetition of fallen cold and dead at the conclusion of each stanza.
This separation is something that can applied beyond President Lincoln’s assassination. Often, people don’t seem to care that much about others’ problems. And quite fairly so – why should they, when they have their own demons to face?
Yet, being alone in one’s mourning can feel terribly isolating and be costly for one’s wellbeing. As a result, this piece indirectly emphasizes the need for strong relationships; ones that go beyond the superficial and where one will step into another’s shoes, taking on their problems as their own.
This is simultaneously a begging of others, but also a call to action: that sometimes, no matter how trivial another’s problems are, it is worth being a friend to them – simply to protect another from the harsh isolation that the world can bring.
Trying something new with some poem analysis. Enjoy, and feel free to disagree with my interpretations – criticism always welcome.
“Maximus, to himself” by Charles Olsen (read by Charles Olsen):
I have had to learn the simplest things last. Which made for difficulties. Even at sea I was slow, to get the hand out, or to cross a wet deck. The sea was not, finally, my trade. But even my trade, at it, I stood estranged from that which was most familiar. Was delayed, and not content with the man’s argument that such postponement is now the nature of obedience,
that we are all late in a slow time, that we grow up many And the single is not easily known
It could be, though the sharpness (the achiote) I note in others, makes more sense than my own distances. The agilities
they show daily who do the world’s businesses And who do nature’s as I have no sense I have done either
I have made dialogues, have discussed ancient texts, have thrown what light I could, offered what pleasures doceat allows
But the known? This, I have had to be given, a life, love, and from one man the world. Tokens. But sitting here I look out as a wind and water man, testing And missing some proof
I know the quarters of the weather, where it comes from, where it goes. But the stem of me, this I took from their welcome, or their rejection, of me
And my arrogance was neither diminished nor increased, by the communication
2
It is undone business I speak of, this morning, with the sea stretching out from my feet
I came across Maximus, to himself upon hearing the American writer Debbie Millman describe it as a “blueprint of [her] life”. And when a writer describes something as a blueprint of their life, I’m naturally curious.
This poem deeply struck me and so I’m going to try something I haven’t done before, which is a poem analysis. Here are three takeaways from this beautiful piece by Charles Olsen.
1. The things we never learn
I have had to learn the simplest things last. / Which made for difficulties.
This juxtaposition between learning the simplest things last hints at a struggle to understand the most fundamental of human qualities.
Sometimes I feel that the most basic questions like what it means to be a good person, or to love, or to be a friend are incredibly difficult to answer. It’s bizarre that convoluted questions like what the genetic locus for a rare disease is or the factors leading up to World War II can be discovered in a article or a book, but questions for fundamental questions on living seem more unanswerable every passing day.
2. The serenity of the present
I have made dialogues, / have discussed ancient texts, / have thrown what light I could, offered / what pleasures / doceat allows
It can be tempting to look towards history or past texts to find the antidote to difficult dilemmas. However, Olsen urges one to explore life through the act of simply living and mentorship:
But the known? / This, I have had to be given, / a life, love, and from one man / the world.
It’s unclear whether “one man” refers to God, himself or family, but the message remains: that engagement with the stories of the past is inferior to a life lived in the present.
3. The waters of life
It is undone business / I speak of, this morning, / with the sea / stretching out / from my feet
Finally, Olsen closes with an image that captures the root message of the poem and spurs a call to action.
Describing the sea as stretching out from my feet creates an overwhelming desire to ground oneself in a rapidly moving world. And though this may seem grim, perhaps we should rejoice at this thought. That while impossible trials and tribulations lay in front of us, we should seize the chance to live. To try, no matter how hopeless it seems, to live in the present, and to refine one’s relationship with the world.
All I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with, and then I can turn the world upside down.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I was recently told that The Nobel Prize in Literature 2020 went to Louise Glück, an American poet. I haven’t read much poetry before – my literary level is fairly undeveloped – but since I’d never heard of Glück before, I decided to look her up. The first of her writings I found was All Hallows, which I’ll share here:
Even now this landscape is assembling. The hills darken. The oxen sleep in their blue yoke, the fields having been picked clean, the sheaves bound evenly and piled at the roadside among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:
This is the barrenness of harvest or pestilence. And the wife leaning out the window with her hand extended, as in payment, and the seeds distinct, gold, calling Come here Come here, little one
And the soul creeps out of the tree.
The first time I read this poem, I was deeply moved. A profound sadness washed over me like a cloud and I felt like a part of me had just died. Without me knowing, tears started swelling up in my eyes – slowly at first, then quickly, like a dam bursting open. I very rarely cry over literature, but this was an unexpected exception.
The bizarre thing is that I barely understood the poem! I intuitively guessed that there was something special about the imagery of oxen, yoke and sheaves but if you asked me to explain what this poem meant, I couldn’t tell you. To this day, after re-reading it many times, it still feels like there is so much to unpack. And each time, a tremendous sense of emotion washes over me without fail.
This was the poem that illuminated the power of the written word in all its awesomeness. And one which has encouraged me to explore literacy on a deeper level.
