At Blackwater Pond: Mary Oliver Reads Mary Oliver

For decades, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Oliver has written in praise of the natural world, searching nature for answers to questions about belonging, faith, love, life and death. She is a poet of empathy, but she lets no one off easy—her love is sometimes tough. Still, there is powerful consolation everywhere in her work, as in her well-known poem, "Wild Geese: You do not have to be good./ You do not have to walk on your knees/ for a hundred miles through the/ desert repenting./ You only have to let the soft animal of your body/ love what it loves." In Oliver's world, a heron becomes "an old Chinese poet," and a worker bee's three-week life is long enough "to know that life is a blessing." Now, in her first CD of recorded readings, Oliver reads poems from several books spanning her entire career, including the acclaimed House of Light and Dream Work and Why I Wake Early . In clear, crisp studio sound, Oliver's voice comes across insistent and calming. Released just in time for National Poetry Month, this CD makes a good introduction or companion to Oliver's accessible work and an inviting gateway to poetry for newcomers. (Apr. 15)