Upstream: Selected Essays
- Jan 16
- 2 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
★★★★★
Could there have been a better time to read Mary Oliver’s Selected Essays than on a trip to Minneapolis to see the (now prior) Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limón, and botanist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, spend an hour in conversation about gratitude and reciprocity, while also reading a smattering from their works? I can’t imagine one. But that was in early October, and, upon my return, the crunch of year-end obligations, or the impending threat of them, began to pile up, and weigh heavily. As January arrived, I still had not written my review. So, to further delay, I decided to read the book again.
In my 52 years, I have lived in this world, yes, but “this world” has been comprised of a great many worlds—some hard, some not, some thrilling, some lamentable, some, perhaps, even, regrettable. That is, none have been boring or forgettable, but few would I choose to return to. But the world contained within Upstream? Yes, please. Mary Oliver’s world is one that I would, and have, and will, return to again and again. It is the world I want to live in, would, I might argue, do my level best to live in now, and, best of all, it is no fairytale world. All the better because I can make this world, and so can you—and you, and you, and you, and, yes, even you.
Divided into five sections, the collection opens with a series of four essays that, upon my return from Minneapolis, I described to a friend as being as close to an autobiography as I might have imagined for myself. That’s not to say that Oliver and I have had the same life, far from it, only that she writes about hers in a way in which I see myself not just reflected, but embodied. Whether others would see it, I can’t say, nor do I care, in truth, for there’s as good a chance it’s as factual as it is aspirational. And who isn’t aspiring, daily, for a better life, a better self? Elsewhere, there are pieces about Emerson, Poe, Wordsworth, and Whitman for a second time, and nature, wildlife, land and landscape, life and living. It is altogether sublime, the way Oliver sees, and feels, and writes her world. One day, I hope, I might be able to do my world as much justice.
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