Mary Oliver: Poetry

What is the theme of the world I lived in

The theme of the poem

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I think the poem speaks to the power of the spiritual and the metaphysical. Mary Oliver is highly influenced by the great Romantic poet of the past and like, like Wordsworth, the overarching thematic concern to be found throughout her long career is that of how man fits into the world of nature around him. This theme becomes most strongly manifested—as well it should—in her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection American Primitive. Here are the connections made between how man fits into a world also populated by natural wonders ranging from mushrooms gaining sight of the world from beneath the soil to the massive humpback whales breeching through the surface of oceans.