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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Why I Wake Early

Last year both my son and I realised the power of Amazon wishlists, not least when it came to grandparents and other relatives asking what one wants for Christmas or birthdays. I now maintain lists on both Amazon US and Amazon UK, partly as a reminder to myself of books and music that looked interesting and partly because it results in great birthday presents!

When I got back from Brazil, a juicy Amazon parcel was waiting for me (how appropriate!), containing my parents' selection from my UK wishlist. I have been reading one of those, Mary Oliver's most recent poetry collection 'Why I Wake Early' [US|UK|CA]. I am completely enchanted to it. Like Philip Larkin, her pattern is often to paint an everyday picture and then to close with a profound reflection in the last line or two. Unlike Larkin, her everyday pictures are each a delight and her reflections are uplifting and life-enhancing. Even a poem like 'At Black River, about an encounter with an alligator, points upward at the end:

Don't think/I'm not afraid./There is such an unleasing/of horror.
Then I remember:/death comes before/the rolling away/of the stone.

I'm struck by the glow of joy that comes from this collection, which was more diffuse in 'New and Selected Poems' [US|UK|CA] (which I also love). The book opens with a cry of morning joy in the title poem:

Hello, sun in my face/Hello, you who make the morning/and spread it over the fields
...
Watch, now, how I start the day/in happiness, in kindness.

and her delight in life and nature is palpable the rest of the way. Despite my selections above the book is not religious, but it is so life-affirming. I'm just over half-way through and have given up putting page-points on favourites as I was marking almost every page.

posted at 9:55 PM (UK) | |