But I want to extol not the sweetness nor the placidity of the dog, but the wilderness out of which he cannot step entirely, and from which we benefit. For wilderness is our first home too, and in our wild ride into modernity with all its concerns and problems we need also all the good attachments to that origin that we can keep or restore. Dog is one of the messengers of that rich and still magical first world. The dog would remind us of the pleasures of the body with its graceful physicality, and the acuity and rapture of the senses, and the beauty of forest and ocean and rain and our own breath. There is not a dog that romps and runs but we learn from him.

Or maybe it’s about the wonderful things that may happen if you break the ropes that are holding you. (c) A testament to modern communication, surely, and coming from dog to person no less (perhaps a jab at our inability or unwillingness to notice our failings at meaningful connection in today’s technological society), though it is more interesting and important to note that human experience is so artfully infused with the seemingly basic suggestion of Dog Songs paying homage to the love of animal(s). This book does so much more than it might appear to be doing. The mutt with intelligent eyes who looked just like the dog in Benji. He was my sweetheart’s dog, not mine. A ragamuffin who loved to leap into snowdrifts, leaving behind a dog-shaped hole.No Voyage, and Other Poems, Dent (New York, NY), 1963, expanded edition, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1965. A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing. How It Is with Us, and How It Is with Them” calls to mind Whitman’s poem on animals from Leaves of Grass. Whitman’s praise of animals is really a critique of human beings. Oliver’s critique of human beings is really a praise of dogs.

Publishers Weekly, May 4, 1990, p. 62; August 10, 1992, p. 58; June 6, 1994, review of A Poetry Handbook, p. 62; October 31, 1994, review of White Pine, p. 54; August 7, 1995, review of Blue Pastures, p. 457; June 30, 1997, review of West Wind, p. 73; March 29, 1999, review of Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems, p. 100; August 28, 2000, review of The Leaf and the Cloud, p. 79; July 21, 2003, review of Owls and Other Fantasies, p. 188.I spent some of Sunday peering over Mistress Carmen's shoulder as she read Dog Songs. It's obvious to me that Puplitzer (or whatever the prize name is) poet and devoted dog mom Mary Oliver has deciphered the canine communications code. Doggie fans will feel the human-dog love and mutual admiration she describes throughout her latest book.

Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs? Oliver . . . is one of our most adored poets, and a longtime lover of dogs. The popularity of [Dog Songs] feels as inevitable and welcome as a wagging tail upon homecoming.”— The Boston GlobeBut even more powerful is the other direction of that affirmative affection — the wholehearted devotion of dogs, who love us unconditionally and in the process teach us to love; in letting us see ourselves through their eyes, they help us believe what they see, believe that we are worthy of love, that we are love.

Helgeson, Mariah (February 16, 2015). "Mary Oliver's Cancer Poem". On Being . Retrieved January 20, 2019. I must wholeheartedly disagree with every word of this. All the dogs I have loved were city dogs. Their obedience did not make them mere possessions or ornaments. Their leashes did not make them less noble or less able to make me kinder or sweeter. Their leashes kept them safe in a city that is inhospitable to unleashed dogs. Their leashes enabled them to live and thrive in an urban environment. The poems stretch forward contagiously from here on, with tones of the human experience directly expressed, as in “The Sweetness of Dogs”:As in all of her poetry, Oliver patiently shows us how to slow, observe, withdraw, and speak the language of the senses. I have seen Ben place his nose meticulously into the shallow dampness of a deer's hoofprint and shut his eyes as if listening. But it is the smell he is listening to. The wild, high music of smell, that we know so little about.