Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver (2016)

by Abbigale Kernya, ​for The 44 North

Managing Editor

The book cover of Upstream by Mary Oliver

Genre: Poetry, Nonfiction, Memoir

Recommended Age: 14+ readers

Rating Scale

Educational value: ​​ 4/5

Positive message: 2/5

Positive role models: 2/5

Violence: 4/5

Sex: 3/5

Language: 1/5

Drinking, drugs, smoking: 5/5

Consumerism:​ 1/5

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“Do you think there is anything not attached by its unbreakable cord to everything else?”

——Mary Oliver, Upstream

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The end of January where I live in Canada has broken out of the harsh grips of winter to an unexpectedly warm and kind spring. It seems only fitting, then, that I should introduce Mary Oliver for this book review. Mary Oliver is one of my favourite writers that I count myself fortunate enough to have come across. Her writing is whimsical, calming, nurturing, and above all else -- simple. There is a time and place for overdramatic and grandiose writing, and believe me I don't favour one over the other, but the beauty of Mary Oliver is the simplistic beauty she so passionately conveys in her work.

Upstream is a collection of essays that details Oliver's childhood living in rural Ohio surrounded by nature. Though Oliver's religion is a guiding factor in her personal life, Upstream is a devotional collection that favours the divine beauty of nature and human's special place among it. During this particular warm pocket of early February, I have found myself picking back up this collection and describing to friends the "self-devotional" message I found loud in this work. Oliver is one of those writers whose works are tied to their religious background, but can be read and enjoyed by everyone. Upstream explores the glorious gift of life weaving in and out of the material and natural world in a breathtaking display of the divine connection between humans and this earth we walk on. 

Oliver's description alone of animals and the forest behind her childhood home is enough to cast this collection of essays on your radar for the upcoming spring. As February leans heavily on the topic of relationships, Oliver uses her adoration of the natural world to better recognize her relationship with herself in a devotional understanding of self-love and acceptance.

Mary Oliver remains one of my favourite poets and never fails to push my introverted self out in nature to walk around the beautiful world she spent her life worshipping. From an atheist, agnostic, religious or spiritual perspective, Oliver depicts life as a delicate gift to be celebrated through kindness and appreciation. Upstream follows a young child experiencing the world for the first time to a young adult carrying within her the curious child who once wandered into the woods and, as Oliver explains, never fully returned.

If you are in the mood to read glorious depictions of nature, find yourself among the trees and flowers, or are curious about living a softer life, then I cannot recommend this collection of essays enough.