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American Primitive (Paperback)

by Mary Oliver (Author) "When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods, in the brambles nobody owns, I spend all day among the high branches, reaching my ripped arms,..." (more)
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.49
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Product details

  • Paperback: 88 pages
  • Publisher: Little, Brown (30 April 1983)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0316650048
  • ISBN-13: 978-0316650045
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.7 x 0.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 314,208 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods, in the brambles nobody owns, I spend all day among the high branches, reaching my ripped arms, thinking of nothing, cramming the black honey of summer into my mouth; all day my body accepts what it is. Read the first page
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7 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A True Classic of Contemporary Poetry, 9 Jul 2004
By Juan Mobili (Valley Cottage, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
To read any poem by Mary Oliver is to be in the presence of the exquisite potential of language for marrying beauty and wisdom. Rarely a poet, so inclined not to impose her view nor her beliefs on anyone, can leave such profound impression on how we may come to see the world. And to read -to live, really- each poem of "American Primitive" is to educate your heart.
Someone said, very appropriately so, that Oliver's poems may have the less humans in them than any contemporary poet's body of work, yet in the case of this magnificent book, two of its most stunning choices -"John Chapman" and "The Lost Children"- has Oliver bring the same keen compassion and awe for the tragic and the gracious in being our kind, that she does when speaking of foxes, mushrooms, or crows and owls.
"John Chapman," for instance, contains some of the wisest lines about being one of us, humans, that you will find in American poetry. Chapman was the real John Appleseed who "thought little, / on a rainy night, / of sharing the shelter of a hollow log touching / flesh with any creatures there" and, yet, as a woman in the poems recalls "he spoke / only once of women and his gray eyes / brittled into ice. "Some / are deceivers," he whispered, and she felt / the pain of it, remembered it / into her old age."
I wonder if Oliver chose him because he lived his life during those times when this country was learning to be this country -and perhaps because of it- we were, for the last time, as close as a species to the rest of nature as we ever had.
"The Lost Children" is also about those times too, yet about those of one kind taken by those who were the natives to this land. It is an amazing feat of truth and empathy, as much as proof of Oliver's mastery of the poem's form and mood as in her capacity to imagine how the disappearance of these children could be as much a calling to another wondrous life and such grief and emptiness to those who will not see them anymore, at the same time.
Given the size limitations stipulated for these reviews, I'm not able to comment in the rest of these poems in the way their stunning depth and beauty deserve. The book's title -American Primitive- reaches a particular poignancy, for me, with every reading, "primitive" means essential, original, a natural and fierce morality.
As she says so certainly "To live in this world / you must be able / to do three things: / to love what is mortal; / to hold it / against your bones knowing / your own life depends on it; / and, when the time comes to let it go, / to let it go.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The elegance of mastery., 9 May 1999
By A Customer
Anyone having had a close study of the body of human verse would recognize the mastery in Mary Oliver's poetry. American Primitive deserves all of the recognition it has received. It ties the elegance of transcendence to the reality of the contemporary world. It is a celebration of the human being and the human being's life-long companion, nature. Oliver's use of the English languge is polished, well-crafted, and wild. Mary Oliver's work takes its place along side of Kunitz, Milosz, and other contemporary masters. I was licking the pages. And, by the way, "P. Larkin," you're not fooling anyone.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars I'm glad I read Dream Work before American Primitive!, 8 Jan 1999
By A Customer
American Primitive won the Pulitzer prize but did not win my heart, my mind, my thoughts. I could not become enthusiastic or excited about the poet's words. They were bland, dull and had no meaning of consequence. None of her poetry struck me as a "mantra", words I would entrust to my soul and would embrace, as part of my living. I was saddened that this was the book that received so much acclaim. Shame, Shame! In contrast to Dream Work, this book is shabby. I am thankful I read Dream Work prior to reading American Primitive. If the sequence had been reversed, I would never have been exposed to the loveliness and sensibility of Dream Work.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Hollow, self-satisfied attempt at "Art"
Lacking any sense of cohesion and continuity, these poems jangle the nerves. Oliver vainly attempts to set a tone and, without fail, manages to hit that wrong "note" --... Read more
Published on 22 Nov 1998

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, accesible American poetry.
Mary Oliver's American Primitive is one of the finer books of poetry written in America in the last fifty years. Read more
Published on 17 Sep 1998

1.0 out of 5 stars floridly excessive new-age similes...
You have got to be kidding... this is the worst drivel since Rod Mckuen. If this is the sort of psuedo-therapeutic garbage that passes for poetry today I will gladly pull my own... Read more
Published on 20 Jul 1998

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite.
"American Primitive" is among the finest books of poetry written by an American author in the last 25 years. Read more
Published on 6 May 1997

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