House of Light

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
—Mary Oliver
“The Summer Day” (House of Light)

Mary Oliver’s words guide us, with solace and empathy, across the rocky terrain of human existence. In House of Light, which was originally published in 1990, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet offers us an opportunity to transcend ordinary life into a realm of natural wonder. Oliver investigates themes on “how to love this world” and to live “as though time didn’t exist” in her poems “Spring” and “The Swan,” and she awakens within us a renewed sense of awe in “The Ponds”: “Still, what I want in my life / is to be willing / to be dazzled— / to cast aside the weight of facts // and maybe even / to float a little / above this difficult world.” As her words suspend time and space, Oliver encourages us to attune ourselves to the quiet moments of enlightenment that perforate each day. Meditative and soulful, the forty-six poems in this collection honor our collective threads of humanity and our never-ending quest for grace.

“Oliver’s poems are thoroughly convincing—as genuine, moving, and implausible as the first caressing breeze of spring.” —The New York Times Book Review