Devotions is a selected-poems collection by Mary Oliver (1935–2019), gathering more than 200 poems drawn from twelve collections spanning over fifty years of her work, from No Voyage, and Other Poems (1963) through Felicity (2015). Published by Penguin Press in 2017, the book is arranged in reverse chronological order. Oliver's characteristic preoccupations run through the selection: close attention to the natural world — birds, insects, grasslands, the sea — and the questions such attention raises about how to live. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984 and the National Book Award in 1992; in 2007 she was identified as the best-selling poet in the United States.
Devotions is widely used as a first introduction to Oliver's poetry. Her unadorned, direct language and her habit of turning observations of the natural world into questions about mortality and attention give the poems their characteristic tone. The collection makes that range available in one volume, from early work that established her voice to the late poems of Felicity.
Reception
Devotions reached the New York Times bestseller list on publication in 2017 and returned to bestseller charts following Oliver's death in January 2019. Critics who have written about Oliver's work note that her unadorned, direct language makes her one of the most accessible contemporary poets; Maxine Kumin described her as "an indefatigable guide to the natural world," and Alicia Ostriker placed her "among the few American poets who can describe and transmit ecstasy." Some academic critics, including Vicki Graham, have argued that Oliver's celebration of dissolution into the natural world "troubles some critics" for its romantic associations of women with nature. This has not diminished her popular readership; Devotions, as a comprehensive retrospective, is widely used as an introduction to Oliver's poetry.
Frequently asked
What is Devotions by Mary Oliver?
A selected-poems collection gathering more than 200 poems from twelve of Oliver's collections, spanning over fifty years of her work from No Voyage, and Other Poems (1963) through Felicity (2015). Published by Penguin Press in 2017, it is arranged in reverse chronological order.
What is Mary Oliver's poetry about?
Oliver's poems attend closely to the natural world — grasslands, birds, insects, the sea — and draw from that attention questions about how to live attentively. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984 and the National Book Award in 1992, and was identified as the best-selling poet in the United States in 2007.
Is Devotions a good starting point for reading Mary Oliver?
It is the most comprehensive single-volume introduction available, spanning twelve collections from 1963 to 2015. It reached the New York Times bestseller list on publication and again after Oliver's death in January 2019.