Winter Hours gathers a diverse selection of Mary Oliver’s shorter writings, ranging from formal essays to prose poems and traditional verse. The collection focuses on the specific habits of the creative life and the sensory details of the natural world in coastal Massachusetts. Oliver details her admiration for Robert Frost and Edgar Allan Poe, analyzes the construction of a house, and documents her observations of owls and spiders. She describes the physical solitude required for writing and the discipline of observing local flora and fauna throughout the seasonal cycle.
This book is written for students of poetry and naturalists who value close observation of the landscape. Readers look to this collection to understand the relationship between a writer's environment and their creative output. Those who study this text gain an understanding of how to translate scientific observation into lyrical language. The book provides a look at the solitary routines that sustain a career in letters, offering readers a blueprint for finding intellectual material in their immediate physical surroundings.
- Published
- 1999
- Language
- EN
