verse. The message and craft of her poetry are
valued by peers and critics alike despite her unfor-
tunate neglect as potential critical review. Accord-
ing to Hyatt H. Waggoner, she lacks the
representative qualities associated with contempo-
rary aesthetic values. However, her real worth as a
modern poet lies in these very atypical qualities.
Representative contemporary poets gloomily
doom modern man and his life in apprehensive
responses to present political, social, economic,
and moral uncertainties.Oliver instead passion-
ately affirms their survival. Within them both, she
exalts the natural—an inherently renewing and
regenerative potential.
The theme of Oliver’s poetry is revitalization.
Through self-conscious denial, modern man must
reconnect his roots with the natural cycles and
processes of all life. As Oliver’s poems engross the
reader in a fully sensual union with nature, she
urges him to recognize the universal joys, pains,
beauties, and terrors experienced in such connect-
edness. She then celebrates his transforming
potential—the loving acceptance of his mortality
in the human and natural worlds.
Oliver’s poetic technique will not be examined
in this discussion. It is important to note, however,
that it too is in keeping with her different contem-
porary stance. Rather than adopt the surreal
escapism and the personal confessions of many
peers, she uses the traditional lyric form to
embrace her readers emotionally and intellectu-
ally. Her meticulous craft and her skilled use of
language create poems that are seemingly effort-
less, sensual delights. She combines rich, musical
lyrics with swift, taut meters; she uses illuminating
images that seldom startle; and she produces a
confident, yet graceful and serene, tone. According
to Anthony Manousos, Oliver’s craft is deceptively
simple—an emotional intensity that speaks clearly
and directly to the reader. More appropriately,
James Dickey characterizes it as remarkable, cre-
ating richly complex poetry without throwing
complexities in the way of the reader.
An analysis of Oliver’s poetic message reveals
that she begins her positive affirmation by seeking
to reconnect modern man to his roots in the
natural processes of all life. According to Wagg-
oner, rather than despairing over the current sep-
aration and alienation of contemporary life,
Oliver searches memory and present experiences.
Through the world of nature, she finds those
intrinsic meanings and values which can be
retrieved, embraced anew, and celebrated in the
modern world. To Manousos, then, her explora-
tion of the natural world and its cycles elicits
concurrent themes analogous to those which are
deepest and most enduring in human experience.
InTwelve Moons, especially, Oliver celebra-
tes the natural cycles of birth, decay, and death as
flourishing in all life. More important, though,
she reveals the companion dreams that motivate
and drive the mortal existence. In ‘‘The Fish,’’
Oliver compares the salmon’s exhaustive and
painful battle upstream to reach her ‘‘old birth
pond’’ with the efforts of ‘‘any woman come to
term, caught / as mortality drives triumphantly
toward / immortality / the shaken bones like /
cages of fire’’. ‘‘Stark County Holidays’’ describes
a Christmas family reunion as the narrator’s
awareness of her mother’s ‘‘wintering’’ decay;
though the musical dream and desire persist, the
‘‘stiffened hands’’ on the ‘‘blasted scales’’ ensure
that seasonally ‘‘the promise fades.’’ In ‘‘The
Black Snake,’’ the reptile found dead in the road-
way is thrown into the bushes as ‘‘looped and
useless as an old bicycle tire.’’ Yet, it is remem-
bered as ‘‘cool and gleaming as a braided whip,’’
imbued with the ‘‘brighter fire’’ of all nature
which ‘‘... says to oblivion: not me!’’
Oliver identifies within these life cycles the
continuous elements of change, sensual pleasure,
and love. She reveals that they not only accom-
pany the companion dreams but also necessarily
involve experiencing both pain and pleasure. In
‘‘Two Horses,’’ Jack and Racket are wished from
death into ‘‘Elysian fields... without fences’’ but
realistically and sadly recognized as changed like
all of life in ‘‘two graves big as cellar holes / At the
bottom of the north meadow.’’ In ‘‘Worm
Moon,’’ the death of winter changes joyfully
into spring’s ‘‘love match that will bring forth
fantastic children /... who will believe, for
years, / that everything is possible.’’ CelebratingTHE THEME OF OLIVER’S POETRY ISREVITALIZATION. THROUGH SELF-CONSCIOUS
DENIAL, MODERN MAN MUST RECONNECT HIS ROOTS
WITH THE NATURAL CYCLES AND PROCESSES OF
ALL LIFE.’’
The Black Snake