Dream Work

“Dream Work is made up of poems that fulfill the demand of lyric poetry by being short, passionate, charged with emotion and its necessary companion, thought. . . . The music in Oliver’s writing is unmistakable. . . . Dream Work is an outstanding book.” —Los Angeles Times

In this collection of forty-five poems, originally published in 1986, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver turns her attention to the solitary and difficult labors of the spirit, the parallel awe and destruction that is nature, and the great wonder and struggle of being. Including some of her most well-known poems, such as "Wild Geese" and "The Journey," Dream Work demonstrates the remarkable depth of perceptural awareness that underlies much of Oliver's writing. An expressive exploration of the world and how one fits within it, Oliver's collection is a rich but unflinching meditation on how to exist amid the darkness while always, tirelessly, bending toward the light.“Dream Work is made up of poems that fulfill the demand of lyric poetry by being short, passionate, charged with emotion and its necessary companion, thought. . . . The music in Oliver’s writing is unmistakable. . . . Dream Work is an outstanding book.” —Los Angeles TimesBorn in a small town in Ohio, Mary Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28. Over the course of her long career, she received numerous awards. Her fourth book, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. She led workshops and held residencies at various colleges and universities, including Bennington College, where she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching. She died in 2019.