Mary Oliver is one of my favourite poets. I liked the rest of the essays too, but these were my absolute favourites. My favourite essays in the book were ‘ Upstream‘, which is a meditative essay about trees, the woods, the forest – it felt almost like reading a Mary Oliver poem here, ‘ My Friend Walt Whitman‘, which is a beautiful ode to this great poet, ‘ Staying Alive‘, which describes how Mary Oliver fell in love with books and nature, ‘ Of Power and Time‘, which is a beautiful, inspiring essay about the life of an artist, ‘ Swoon‘, which is about the spider mom, ‘ Bird‘, which is about the injured seagull, ‘ Building the House‘, in which Oliver describes how she tried building a house once, and ‘ Provincetown‘, which is a beautiful nostalgic piece. It was hard not to think of Charlotte while reading the essay on the spider. I liked both these nature sections, but I loved the fourth section more. We almost feel that the spider and the seagull are human. There is another essay about an injured seagull which Oliver saves from the beach and what happens to him. Here, there is an essay on a spider which is building her web and trying to have babies. The fourth section takes a more closer look. For example, there is an essay about ponds and another about fishing and different kinds of fishes.

Is there any difference between them? Which section did I like more? The second section mostly had essays which looked at nature from a slightly larger perspective. I mentioned earlier that the second and the fourth sections were about nature. It is a beautiful essay about how this beautiful coastal town changed from a sleepy town where everyone was happy to the tourist spot that it is today. The final section has one essay called ‘ Provincetown‘ which talks about the town in which Oliver lived with her partner for nearly five decades. Here in four essays, she shares her thoughts on Emerson, Poe, Whitman and Wordsworth. The third section is about Oliver’s favourite writers. She also shares her thoughts on writing as an art – it is one of the most beautiful and inspiring essays I have read. She also writes about her favourite poet Walt Whitman. In the first section, Mary Oliver writes about how she fell in love with nature and with reading and with poetry. ‘ Upstream‘ is a collection of essays, mostly selected from Mary Oliver’s other collections and assembled together here. (Isn’t the book cover breathtakingly beautiful?)

But I haven’t read any of her prose or essay collections. Everytime I read her poem, ‘ The Summer Day‘, I get goosebumps.

Upstream by mary oliver review