Dream Work

Dream Work , a collection of forty-five poems, follows both chronologically and logically Mary Oliver’s American Primitive , which won her the Pulitzer Prize for the finest book of poetry published in 1983 by an American poet. The depth and diversity of perceptual awareness – so steadfast and radiant in American Primitive – continue in Dream Work. She has turned her attention in these poems 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.

Whether by way of inheritance – as in her poem about the Holocaust – or through a painful glimpse into the present – as in “Acid,” a poem about an injured boy begging in the streets of Indonesia – the events and tendencies of history take on a new importance here. More deeply than in her previous volumes, the sensibility behind these poems has merged with the world. Mary Oliver’s willingness to be joyful continues, deepened by self-awareness, by experience, and by choice.