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ImperfectedStone (The Gardener)
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Bone - Celebration of Mary Oliver

Ahavati
Tyrant of Words
United States 116awards
Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 14145

Poetry Contest

The Classic Corner: Mary Oliver

Co-Host - JohnnyBlaze ( also the amazing artist who rendered Oliver's portrait )

Part VIII in an ongoing series introducing serious writers of DUP to the most well-known poets, both classical and modern.  

Mary Oliver ( b 09.10.1935 ) is an “indefatigable guide to the natural world,” wrote Maxine Kumin in the Women’s Review of Books, “particularly to its lesser-known aspects.” Oliver’s verse focuses on the quiet of occurrences of nature: industrious hummingbirds, egrets, motionless ponds, “lean owls / hunkering with their lamp-eyes.” Kumin noted that Oliver “stands quite comfortably on the margins of things, on the line between earth and sky, the thin membrane that separates human from what we loosely call animal.”

Her awards include:

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
1984 · American Primitive

National Book Award for Poetry
1992 · New and Selected Poems

PEN New England Award
1991 · The House of Light

Goodreads Choice Awards Best Poetry
2012 · A Thousand Mornings

Guidelines  

Write a new poem honoring Oliver from one of the following poetry titles. Bonus points if you actually read the poem and include a reference other than the title within it.    

1)   The Journey

2)   Sleeping in the Forest

3)   Wild Geese

4)   Poem ( the spirit likes to dress up )

5)  Morning Poem

6)  The Swan

7)  Bone

8)  Song of the Builders

9)  Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does it End?

10)  When Death Comes

11)  A Dream of Trees

12)  Mindful

The Rules

1.  One entry per DUP persona.  

2. No erotica; this is open to all ages and can't be viewed with an ECW.  

3. No exact word limit; however, attempt to keep it no more than 250 - 300.  

4. Any form is acceptable.  

5. Hashtag your poem #MaryOliver and link to your poem here. Do NOT copy paste your poem to the competition. The point is to eventually direct visitors searching for Oliver to your poem via the hashtag we hope will eventually be implemented by the Webmiss.  

Comp will be judged by a panel including myself.  You have one month; best of luck to all entrants.      


Ahavati
Tyrant of Words
United States 116awards
Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 14145

Wild Geese ( After Mary Oliver )

There are no instructions to glean wisdom;  
no table of contents directing the living  
to their appropriate chapter in life’s manual.
 
There is only an instinct for survival,  
one deeper than holding your breath;  
and no one taught you to do that.  
 
In the intimate darkness of womb  
you inhaled amniotic fluid  
because it sustained your growth,
but no one taught you to do that.  
 
No one taught you to hold your breath  
in the birth canal or your first bath;  
you just knew you were supposed to.  
 
So why do you try so hard to understand  
what cannot be understood by anyone;  
knowledge flows in our veins.  
 
All you have to do is listen to the drum  
of blood in your ear when submerged  
into the still depth of a bath or pond,  
 
where language opens the memory  
of being formed already knowing:  
 
You were life’s prayer of becoming—  
and its answer all along.     
~     
 
#MaryOliver
Written by Ahavati
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JohnnyBlaze
Tyrant of Words
United States 23awards
Joined 20th Mar 2015
Forum Posts: 5572

[ CC ] All Night Slumber Party

       
I pond-ered as if rain---      
my wits slowly gathering; shape      
shifting consciousness expanding;      
coming to more senses than      
I was previously aware of.      
Embraced against bosom in welcoming arms,      
the Earth invited me to take rest in her cottage,      
yet we ended up chatting all night      
under a raftered porch of branches     
frosted with moonlight and starfire white;      
illuminated miniature kingdoms everwhere      
about us guarded by little moth-men      
and counseled by wise owl guardians.      
When morning came --- who knew
sleeping in the forest      
would be so enchanting?
 
 
Written by JohnnyBlaze
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Non-entry entry.

poet Anonymous

I have tried all of these and keep failing, hopefully something will come of this one 😅

yelluw_always
Haley Quaquaversal
Fire of Insight
United States 5awards
Joined 24th Dec 2018
Forum Posts: 141

The Collector

1.    
   
Unusual, in the distance, stillness    
beneath a hanging    
wispy algae as it waves    
a flag. The pelican    
whittled down    
to its base form. Stark, stranded, smooth-    
an orange beak    
like a bird of paradise and I sought heaven    
in your duplicity, in your triplicity,    
in your multitudes, a million    
lights emerge    
as static on the sea, I did not see it.    
I believe wishes come    
   
2.    
   
from the wing bone. Funny,    
life is not a stranger, but death is.    
You can touch it, taste it, feel it,    
but not know it.    
I took the bone and weighted less;    
brought it home on one last flight.    
Washed in the basin away most  
of the miasma, tiny, white on white sins.    
Left a few in the creases    
for remembrance, the orbs of moments,    
making up your life.    
It’s your story to tell; here’s some tea    
leaves falling on the floor.    
I brush them under the couch,    
as you only save what can be kept.    
   
3.    
   
The call of the sea    
washes over me    
at night. Fishing, as neon shines    
through the gills- my blinds,    
for compassion.    
In my sleep, I do not hear, therefore-    
from the shelf, I have put    
them inside myself;    
the ear bone and the wing bone    
to substitute the gaps.    
There then, I fly and collect like clouds    
water in my throat. And I hear    
the clouds gasping as I do    
on the shore. What a treasure.    
Would you two buffer me a while?    
   
   
#MaryOliver
Written by yelluw_always (Haley Quaquaversal)
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Ahavati
Tyrant of Words
United States 116awards
Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 14145

Mindful ( After Mary Oliver )

God days, I call them—        
creation aligned        
with mindful being        
despite contrast;          
         
such as the truth        
of this simple moment:        
no accolade, award        
or holiday exists as reason          
to appreciate its breath;          
         
only Life itself:      
winter grass    
a frozen lake—       
this skeletal leaf           
~        
       
#MaryOliver
Written by Ahavati
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Jade-Pandora
jade tiger
Tyrant of Words
United States 154awards
Joined 9th Nov 2015
Forum Posts: 5134

Sleeping In The Forest

*
*Yes.*  
*It was*  
*an embrace*  
*I felt when I ventured*  
*into the embryo.*  
*    
*Of*  
*when*  
*I crouched*  
*and peered, and was*    
*the memory of*  
*  
*A*  
*faintly*  
*familiar feel*  
*of freedom, that I had*  
*merely saved*  
*  
*And*  
*let slip,*  
*till I was with*  
*the earth while she had*  
*softly whispered*  
*  
*The*    
*first lesson*  
*she ever taught me,*  
*of the worlds in raindrops*  
*and night wings.*  
*  
*It*  
*had not*  
*yet dawned on*  
*the treetops or in my mind,*    
*when a shower*  
*  
*Of*  
*stars*    
*suddenly erupted*    
*in a perfect silence, while*  
*the light of each*  
*  
*Ice*  
*firebrand*    
*quickly flickered*    
*between the pine needles,*    
*and raced across*  
*  
*The*  
*warm*  
*living soil*  
*being turned,*    
*that cradled me with*    
*its lullaby, before dying out.*  
*To sleep & sail by the reckoning*  
*of the North Star.*  
***
   
   
Written in the poetic form known as Concrete, which structures the poem with the words/lines to suggest the silhouettes of living and/or inanimate objects. In this case: Fir trees.  
 
Written by Jade-Pandora (jade tiger)
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JohnnyBlaze
Tyrant of Words
United States 23awards
Joined 20th Mar 2015
Forum Posts: 5572

[ CC ] [ fAwL ] Renewal

        
After we met, I knew in this Heart of mine          
the journey led straight to your doorstep.          
I ignored voices in my head --- exhausting      
critics who repeatedly said that the Universe    
wasn't in my corner. I proved them wrong,          
as well as cowardly, refusing daily to give up    
on our melody: we're instruments in song,    
keyed to the vibration of Us. Thus, my dark    
night of the soul was illuminated with stars         
shining and cards turned face up held firm          
the Tarot'ed promise that in being myself          
all roads pointed to You.      
     
 
Written by JohnnyBlaze
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Non-entry entry.

gothicsurrealism
Daniel Long
Thought Provoker
United States 6awards
Joined 26th Nov 2018
Forum Posts: 138

Sleeping in The Forest (Make Earth Your Heaven)

Mother-Earth remembered her,
She took Mary back so tenderly.
Like the willow tree, her mother’s hair swayed so gracefully.
Mother nature’s tune humming as she blanketed her in leaves so lovingly.

She slept as never before, a breeze billowing her bedroom curtains,
nothing between her and the white streaks of falling stars.
Her childhood dreams feathered as Autumn leaves
beneath her favorite tree branch.

The small kingdoms of insects in her bedchamber
buzzing throughout the moonlit hours.
Mother always said at bedtime, “make earth your heaven.”
Geese and swans outside her bedroom window whirring in their song.

Tossing, turning and tearing at night,
coping with the glow of yellow, eerie moonlight.
By morning the swans had carried her away many times
into the sun of her serene dreams, leaving the moon-glow.


#MaryOliver
Written by gothicsurrealism (Daniel Long)
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Josh
Joshua Bond
Tyrant of Words
Palestine 40awards
Joined 2nd Feb 2017
Forum Posts: 1664

"The Journey" Revisited

Josh (Joshua Bond)
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slipalong
Dangerous Mind
United Kingdom 41awards
Joined 1st Jan 2018
Forum Posts: 820

A dream of trees # mary oliver

the dormant state after leaves have dropped
I dream't that spring would stop the rot
what happened to the Do-Do tree
they burned down to a stump
the pyrenean ibex that stood upon the hill
the branches just like antlers  
the golden crested Quagga
that stood upon the plains
 these all were living forms
but now alas are lost
the planet warms and the virus bites
the ash falls sick with deadly blight
poison fungi its spores like mites
suck the sap and brown the lingered death  
I do not wake refreshed  
the forest like me has a troubled sleep
Written by slipalong
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SatInUGal
Kumar
Dangerous Mind
United States 24awards
Joined 31st Dec 2015
Forum Posts: 903

Is the poem I wrote in the other comp eligible for this? Feels appropriate.

Ahavati
Tyrant of Words
United States 116awards
Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 14145

SatInUGal said:Is the poem I wrote in the other comp eligible for this? Feels appropriate.

It wasn't written specifically as a tribute poem, though I'm sure you'll have no problemo writing another inspired by one of her poems listed above! Let me speak with  Johnny in the morning and I'll get back with you.

Ahavati
Tyrant of Words
United States 116awards
Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 14145

SatInUGal said:Is the poem I wrote in the other comp eligible for this? Feels appropriate.

Hey! Spoke to Johnny and we both feel that the other would not be in the spirit of the comp because it was prewritten for another comp.  Prewrites are not allowed in this one.  

After the way you unscrambled the Poetic Medic comp, we both feel you'll have no trouble with a new entry here!

Thank you for understanding; we look forward to your entry.

SatInUGal
Kumar
Dangerous Mind
United States 24awards
Joined 31st Dec 2015
Forum Posts: 903

Thanks. I look forward to writing it.

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