"Voices the heart can hear" : from silence to voice in the poetry of Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver's poems are predominantly nature lyrics; therefore, they contain subject matter often devalued in our culture. She has been disregarded in most serious critical studies of contemporary poetry, even in studies of contemporary poetry by women. Her relationship to nature is complex, however, and it provides a means by which she can achieve a powerful voice. In Oliver's earliest poems, women are often silent or speak ineffectually. These poems tend to be traditional in structure and have an artificial, distant quality. In Oliver's middle poems, however, she begins to listen to the sounds of nature and gradually moves into her own relationship with the flora and fauna. As she does so, her forms become freer. Both her union with nature and her increased use of less constrained forms can best be illuminated by feminist criticism, particularly that of feminist critics who see the feminine impulse as connective and fluid. In her final volume, entitled Dream Work, Oliver reevaluates the tasks required of and the problems inherent in finding a voice. This work provides a transition between all of her published poetry to date and what is yet to come. My purpose in this study is twofold: to point out the development from silence to voice in Oliver's poetry and to argue that there is enough of substance In her work to merit further serious critical study.