Dream Work

An “astonishing” book of poetry from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Primitive and “one of our very best poets” (Stephen Dobyns, The New York Times Book Review). Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems, fol... Read more

An “astonishing” book of poetry from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Primitive and “one of our very best poets” (Stephen Dobyns, The New York Times Book Review). Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems, follows Mary Oliver’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry volume American Primitive. The deep perceptual awareness on display in that collection is all the more radiant and steadfast here. With this new collection, Oliver has turned her attention to the solitary and difficult labors of the spirit–to accepting the truth about one’s personal world, and to valuing the triumphs while transcending the fail­ures of human relationships. Oliver brings grace and empathy to the painful legacies of history, whether by way of inheritance–as in her poem about the Holocaust–-or through a glimpse into the realities of present–as in her poem about an injured boy begging in the streets of Indonesia. And yet, Oliver’s willingness to find light, humanity, and joy continues, deepened by self-awareness, by experience, and by choice. Less