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Vanessa Eng's avatar

I've been starting my days on my back porch with my breakfast and this book. Some of these poems have been in my life for over 20 years and when I reread them, I think of the poetry professor who introduced me to Mary Oliver and how grateful I am to her. Some of these poems are much newer to me. Today I read Humpbacks for the first time. When I read it, I could picture these glorious animals and feel the thrill of being in their presence. I loved her word choice, especially how she speaks directly to the reader and creates an intimacy by saying "you know what I mean". The phrases "carrying their tonnage of barnacles and joy" and "I know several lives worth living" particularly struck me.

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anne marie's avatar

I'm not really a poetry reader, normally. And I want going to join this. But I've been randomly seeing Mary Oliver quotes all over the place recently and keep making note of them. And the prompts/tasks you listed are really intriguing (seriously, I'm so used to boring normal bookclub things, but taking a picture? Uh, k!). So I guess I'm heading to my local bookstore tomorrow.

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