Dog Songs (Deluxe Edition)

by Mary Oliver

Overview

“The popularity of [Dog Songs] feels as inevitable and welcome as a wagging tail upon homecoming.” —The Boston Globe
 
Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs is a celebration of the special bond between human and dog, as understood through the poet’s relationships to the canines that have accompanied her daily walks, warmed her home, and inspired her work. Oliver’s poems begin in the small everyday moments familiar to all dog lovers, but through her extraordinary vision, these observations become higher meditations on the world and our place in it.

Dog Songs includes visits with old friends, like Oliver’s beloved Percy, and introduces still others in poems of love and laughter, heartbreak and grief. Throughout, the many dogs of Oliver’s life merge as fellow travelers and as guides, uniquely able to open our eyes to the lessons of the moment and the joys of nature and connection. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101638736
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/08/2013
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	280,558
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Born in a small town in Ohio, Mary Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28. Over the course of her long career, she has received numerous awards. Her fourth book, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. She has led workshops and held residencies at various colleges and universities, including Bennington College, where she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching.

Read an Excerpt

FIRST TIME PERCY CAME BACK

The first time Percy came back
he was not sailing on a cloud.
He was loping along the sand as though
he had come a great way.
“Percy,” I cried out, and reached to him—
 

those white curls—
but he was unreachable. As music
is present yet you can’t touch it.
“Yes, it’s all different,” he said.
“You’re going to be very surprised.”
But I wasn’t thinking of that. I only
wanted to hold him. “Listen,” he said.
“I miss that too.
And now you’ll be telling stories
 

of my coming back
and they won’t be false, and they won’t be true,
but they’ll be real.”
And. then, as he used to, he said, “Let’s go!”
And we walked down the beach together.
 

Table of Contents

How It Begins 1

How It Is with Us, and How It Is with Them 3

If You Are Holding This Book 5

Every Dog's Story 7

The Storm (Bear) 9

Conversations 11

Luke's Junkyard Song 15

Luke 19

Her Grave 23

Benjamin, Who Came from Who Knows Where 31

The Dog Has Run Off Again 33

Holding On to Benjamin 35

The Poetry Teacher 39

Bazougcy 41

Ropes 43

Percy 47

School 49

Little Dog's Rhapsody in the Night 51

Time Passes 53

Untitled 55

Percy Wakes Me 57

The Sweetness of Dogs 61

Percy Speaks While I Am Doing Taxes 63

Percy, Waiting for Ricky 65

Percy (2002-2009) 67

For I Will Consider My Dog Percy 69

The First Time Percy Came Back 77

Ricky Talks About Talking 79

The Wicked Smile 83

The Traveler 87

Show Time 89

A Bad Day 93

Henry 95

How a Lot of Us Become Friends 101

You Never Know Where a Conversation Is Going to Go 103

Dog Talk 107

Note 123

Credits 125

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

The New York Times
“Dog Songs....is a sweet golden retriever of a book that curls up with the reader.”

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times
“Dog Songs....is a sweet golden retriever of a book that curls up with the reader.

From the Publisher

09/15/2013
Winner of both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Oliver (American Primitive) continues to build her legacy with this latest collection of new and selected poems, marking 50 years since her first book of poetry was published. Oliver's keen intuition of the natural world has allowed her to invent a poetic voice distinct to the American landscape and unmatched by that of her contemporaries. Here she is relaxed and at home in poems that read like songs and tell the stories of her companionship—the experience of love, trust, loss, grief, joy—with the animals she's spent a lifetime getting to know. In "Percy, Waiting for Ricky," the image is simple, the language straightforward, and the narrative complete, so the connection among the poet, her lines, and the reader is immediate, clarifying that reading poetry shouldn't be difficult: "Your friend is coming, I say/ to Percy and name a name// and he runs to the door, his/ wide mouth in its laugh-shape,// and waves, since he has one, his tail.// Emerson, I am trying to live"; then: "How// would it be to be Percy, I wonder, not/ thinking, not weighing anything, just running forward." VERDICT Oliver makes writing poetry look easy, yet she requires your attention. For readers seeking tangible meaning, Oliver gives lines of plenty here.—Annalisa Pesek, Library Journal

Library Journal