Liam Meldung - Week 6 - Pick a Poet (Mary Oliver) - "Forty Years"
“Forty Years” by Mary Oliver is not too difficult to decipher, in my opinion, but poems may have a certain meaning and others reading it might interpret it completely differently than what it was meant to mean. The poem seems to be written about Mary Oliver herself. She explains that she is now forty years old. It sounds as if she is talking about her own writing, how she believes everything she has done up until that point she is proud of, “from day to day, from one golden page to another.” I take this to mean that her work is golden, perfect, that she loves each and every piece, like a child.
I think that she is trying to say that as time goes by and the more you write and create, the more you find your voice, the more confident you become in your work, and the more proud of your work you become. You learn as you get older who you are as a writer and a person, and I think that’s what Mary Oliver is trying to convey through this poem. It takes time to learn yourself, how you write, what you want to write about, and even what you want to do with your life, but as you grow up you start to learn more about yourself and feel more confident and secure in everything you do.
A theme Mary Oliver uses in, if not all, most of her poems is nature, and personifying it to convey her point even more. She describes her writing as “...not even a river, not a tree… not a green field, not even a black ant traveling”. I understand this as giving examples of how her work no matter the size and the amount of strength it has whether the strength of a measly ant or the strength of a powerful body of water her writing is hers, it conveys her message the way she wants it to be told, and she loves every piece no matter what.
This poem is very fitting for this time of year. As seniors, most of us are still trying to get to know who we are, what we want to do, what we want to be, and we are learning as we go. University and college will be one more step in growing up and learning more about ourselves and becoming more confident in the work we produce whether it be writing, film, acting, science, medicine, and anything else you can think of.
Mary Oliver sounds like a very wise writer. With each day, we are constantly learning more about ourselves. It makes you truly realize that it’s about the journey and the discoveries you find along the way.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your interpretation of the poem. I think that the author was referring to her work as being different, not faultless, but perfect in the way that in conveyed both great things and small things, both the might torrent of a river and a measly ant, as well as capturing everything in between and beyond. I enjoyed how you relate the interpretation of the poem, about a person's art, to the junction in which find ourselves in life, at a big change, where become independent.
ReplyDelete