num_pages: 255
description: Mary Oliver was awarded the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems, Volume One.  Since its initial appearance it has become one of the best-selling volumes of poetry in the country. This collection features thirty poems published only in this volume as well as selections from the poet's first eight books.Mary Oliver's perceptive, brilliantly crafted poems about the natural landscape and the fundamental questions of life and death have won high praise from critics and readers alike. "Do you love this world?" she interrupts a poem about peonies to ask the reader. "Do you cherish your humble and silky life?" She makes us see the extraordinary in our everyday lives, how something as common as light can be "an invitation/to happiness,/and that happiness,/when it's done right,/is a kind of holiness,/palpable and redemptive." She illuminates how a near miss with an alligator can be the catalyst for seeing the world "as if for the second time/the way it really is." Oliver's passionate demonstrations of delight are powerful reminders of the bond between every individual, all living things, and the natural world.
language: English
title: New and Selected Poems, Volume One
titlecomplete: New and Selected Poems, Volume One
genres: Nature, Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Spirituality, Collections, Nonfiction, Literature, Adult, Classics
ratings_count: 13126
awards: awardedAt: 694252800000
name: National Book Award
category: Poetry
publisher: Beacon Press