Thirst: Poems

Thirst, a collection of forty-three new poems from the Pulitzer Prize-winner Mary Oliver, introduces two new directions in the poet's work. Grappling with grief at the death of her beloved partner of over forty years, she strives to experience sorrow as a path to spiritual progress, grief as part of loving and not its end. And within these pages she chronicles for the first time her discovery of faith, without abandoning the love of the physical world that has been a hallmark of her work for four decades. In three stunning long poems, Oliver explores the dimensions and tests the parameters of religious doctrine, asking of being good, for example, "To what purpose? / Hope of Heaven? Not that. But to enter / the other kingdom: grace, and imagination, / and the multiple sympathies: to be as a leaf, a rose, / a dolphin."

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 10/01/2006
ISBN: 9780807068960
Pages: 88
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.66h x 6.54w x 0.53d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 08/28/2006 pg. 32
Booklist 09/01/2006 pg. 39
Library Journal 01/01/2007 pg. 113
Lambda Book Report 12/01/2007 pg. 14
Univ PR Books for Public Libry 01/01/2007 pg. 1 - Strongly Recommended