Summer Day Mary Oliver

Dive into Mary Oliver's 'Summer Day' poem! Analyze nature, life's purpose, and poetic devices.

Today's Focus Poet: Mary Oliver About Mary Oliver Please read below an edited excerpt from the Poetry Foundation to get some background information on Mary Oliver.Mary Oliver was born and raised in Maple Hills Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. She would retreat from a difficult home to the nearby woods, where she would build huts of sticks and grass and write poems. She attended both Ohio State University and Vassar College, but did not receive a degree from either institution.Oliver’s poetry focused on the quiet of occurrences of nature: industrious hummingbirds, egrets, motionless ponds, “lean owls / hunkering with their lamp-eyes.” Mary Oliver stands quite comfortably on the margins of things, on the line between earth and sky, the thin membrane that separates human from what we loosely call animal.Oliver’s poetry won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and a Lannan Literary Award for lifetime achievement. Reviewing Dream Work (1986) for the Nation, critic Alicia Ostriker numbered Oliver among America’s finest poets, as “visionary as [Ralph Waldo] Emerson.”A prolific writer of both poetry and prose, Oliver routinely published a new book every year or two. Her main themes continue to be the intersection between the human and the natural world, as well as the limits of human consciousness and language in articulating such a meeting.Oliver lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Hobe Sound, Florida, until her death in early 2019. She was 83. Based on the biography you just read and listened to, what is something you can expect to see in Mary Oliver's poems? Family Nature School Historical fiction Poetry Reading 1 Watch and listen to this video. If the Youtube does not work, you can look up Summer Day by Mary Oliver on Youtube on a different device or just read it from Google Classroom. The first time we read a poem, we are just looking to figure out what is actually happening in the poem - not looking deeper at how the story is being told. So, what is happening in this poem? Mary Oliver is out in nature and starts to ask questions about her own life as she observes the beauty and complex nature of a simple creature. Mary Oliver goes out in nature and starts looking around listing everything she sees. Mary Oliver starts talking to a grasshopper and the grasshopper gives her answers to life's questions. Mary Oliver learns about friendship with her best friend, the grasshopper. VOICE RECORD YOUR ANSWER The first three lines of the poem are all questions. STOP and go re- read those first three lines.Think back to the signpost, tough questions. Tough questions is when a character (in this case the narrator) asks a question that is difficult to answer. We then need to ask ourselves, what does this make me wonder about?So, I want you to voice record your answer to this two part question.1. Why do you think the author decided to open up the poem with three questions right away?2. What do these questions make you wonder about? Poem Reading 2: Read the poem out loud to yourself or watch the video a second time. Grasshopper Details As Mary Oliver goes out in nature she really focuses in on the grasshopper. She offers vivid imagery as we can all start to really see what is going on with the grasshopper. She even gives more details than we may have even noticed if we saw the exact same grasshopper. Go back in the poem and add in different details about the grasshopper onto this image. Why do you think Mary Oliver spent so much time talking about this grasshopper? Why does this grasshopper even matter? (HINT: This goes a long with the theme and if you read the rest of the poem after the grasshopper description, you might figure it out!)You must support your answer with an explanation of why you think what you think. Please do not start this response with "I think...." <-- Remember, I know this is what you think because this is your writing. Start with stronger language like "Mary Oliver spends so much time..." Poetry Reading 3 Read the poem or watch this video at least one more time. What is Mary Oliver grappling or struggling with throughout this poem with her questions and her statements of I do not know? Type your answer. Mary Oliver ends this poem by saying,Tell me, what is it you plan to doWith your one wild and precious life?This is one of her most famous lines. Who do you think she is asking this question to? Think carefully because there are a lot of correct answers. Support your response with an explanation. Use claim + evidence + analysis organization to tell me, what is the theme of this poem? You must use evidence directly from the text. You need to TYPE this answer and your response should be at least 5 sentences. Did you like this poem? Be specific with your explanation of why or why not. See if you can use literary vocabulary in your response - figurative language, imagery, sensory details, theme, characterization, etc. VOICE record your response.