Mary Oliver White Owl Flies Into And Out Of The Field Analysis

While upon first glance her corpus seems to be filled with elementary age written material- one word titles such as “Poppies”, “Ponds”, and “Daisies”, and seemingly undersized poems- Mary Oliver’s sharp observation of the natural world and all it’s inhabitants allows her to transcend and creatively tackle some of the toughest topics to pen, such as death and the meaning of life, in a way that allows readers of every age to grapple with and discern her conclusions. Many of her poems captured in her Pulitzer Prize winning collection “New and Selected Poetry” feature her rapturous lyricism covering her absent apprehension about what will happen after she takes her last earthly breath. Through her use of symbolism, light and dark imagery, and allusion in her poem “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field” (page 99), Oliver argues that death is not something that should preoccupy human fears but should rather be accepted by all. …show more content…
The verse opens featuring a natural phenomenon, in this case being an owl in the wintertime, “Coming down/ out of the freezing sky/”. As Oliver writes that the owl leaps from it’s perch, the bird of prey instinctively notices a scurrying beneath the thick layer of white snow and thrusts it’s taloned toes into the cold. The owl then emerges in glorious fashion and rises over the frozen tundra to watch for more movement underfoot.
Following this comes the latter addition of the two-part structure, where Oliver incorporates herself (and humankind in general) into the poem. She