Today I read “Dogfish” by Mary Oliver in the light of my own ongoing preoccupation with meaninglessness, fear & creative excess.

Here is a short excerpt from the original poem:

(…)

I wanted

the past to go away, I wanted

to leave it, like another country; I wanted

my life to close, and open

like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song

where it falls

down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;

I wanted

to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,

whoever I was, I was

 

alive

for a little while.

(…)

You don’t want to hear the story


of my life, and anyway


I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen

 

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

(…)

There are so many things I love about this poem: I love how it is so very personal without being private (and I believe this is why every reader can see that this is a story about themselves). I love how the narrator let her own interior life mix in with the natural scenery; doubling the production of meaning in both. I love the strength in the narrator’s voice (I want my life to open) – even if its pretty obvious she has had some troubles lately (I wanted my life to close). And most of all I like the linguistic simplicity (thriftiness?), Oliver’s ability of not using a single word too many.

Josef Hoflehner: Private Property  (2005)