“Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”

Synopsis

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver’s Devotions is a personally curated collection of her best work, spanning over five decades of poetry. The main themes include religion, gratitude, and a connection to nature and self. 

After letting Devotions gather metaphorical dust on my Kindle for a while, I finally picked it back up during a short staycation with my boyfriend. We decided to spend the holiday as phoneless as possible, returning to hobbies like jigsaw puzzles, reading, and just generally having conversations (how archaic!).

This time of slowness, without the feelings of FOMO that often come with distancing from social media, really amplified my reading experience—helping me appreciate the slower and more ordinary moments of life.

Observation and Appreciation

Oliver’s focus on the smaller, often unnoticed details of life, such as the way a lettuce grows or details of a bee—highlights the first point of her poetry: the art of noticing. Oliver does this with the intention of encouraging the reader to pay attention to the beauty within the natural world, to feel more connected to their surroundings, and to discover an inner connection. 

For example, the passage below emphasises how this act of noticing itself becomes a form of prayer for Oliver:
“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.”

For Oliver, the idea of being amongst grass, being still, and taking a moment for yourself is a religious act. Her religion is rooted in the appreciation of nature, and for her, the two are interconnected—a prayer is simply being in a field of grass. This resonated with me as someone who isn’t religious, but often feels that elements of nature have souls. Therefore, when I go on walks, I too feel as though I’m experiencing a religious moment of prayer.

Connection to Self and Nature

Oliver takes moments from the ordinary and transforms them into something remarkable, purely through the words she uses. A simple walk through the woods becomes a beautiful, philosophical moment about her own existence and the livelihood of the environment itself.

This is seen in quotes such as: “Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart,” which clearly emphasises the connection Oliver presents between herself and the environment around her. For her, a walk through the woods is not just a walk, but both a philosophical experience and a questioning of presence. Is she truly present within herself to recognise what is around her? Is she present enough within herself to recognise what she is feeling in her inner world?

Ideas like this are incredibly profound to me as someone who has become increasingly aware of how emotional I am as a human being. I genuinely feel more refreshed after time away from my phone, and I feel better when I do things like go out for a walk or read a book (shocking!!). But this is something I fear we, as a society, are starting to forget. Not even forget, but ignore. I think we are generally aware that being stuck on social media is bad for us, and that we should go outside more—yet we don’t.

Final Thoughts

Devotions is a beautiful poetry collection about appreciating life and the nature surrounding us. It is heartwarming and speaks to the power of gratitude, showing how, by being present in ordinary moments, life can become almost a spiritual or religious experience. It truly feels like the definition of “romanticising your life” the Mary Oliver way. A written love letter to life, and a beautiful one at that. 

I did find that, after a while, the collection became a bit repetitive.  It’s definitely one to dip into a little at a time. But then again, I feel that’s true of most collections—you get the pieces that are really effective and others that are more so-so.

Overall, Devotions is an uplifting book that made me more appreciative of the world around me, both big and small. It also gave me the sense of feeling more connected with the earth and all things around me. With all of this in mind, I give Devotions a four-star rating!