West Wind
Poems and Prose Poems
HarperCollins · Print & ebook · April 7, 1998
A collection from the Pulitzer Prize–winner whose poems have been praised "as genuine, moving, and implausible as the first caressing breeze of spring" (The New York Times).
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- Who it’s for
- Forty poems attend to nature and love, tracing what shifts over time and what remains.
- Themes
- Nature and love, Love's change and constancy, What makes life worthwhile
- Genres
- Nature Poetry, Love Poetry, LGBTQ+ Poetry
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved. Most of these share its genre: Nature Poetry.
A Thousand MorningsMary Oliver66% match
House of LightMary Oliver68% matchAlso shares LGBTQ+ Poetry
Winter HoursMary Oliver71% matchAlso shares LGBTQ+ Poetry
Water, WaterBilly Collins59% match
White PineMary Oliver72% matchAlso shares LGBTQ+ Poetry
Time Is a MotherOcean Vuong58% matchAlso shares LGBTQ+ Poetry
Devociones. Poesía Reunida / DevotionsMary Oliver64% match
The AskingJane Hirshfield63% match
For younger readers: Honeybee, Voices in the Air, Light Filters In: Poems
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Start with this bookAbout this book
A collection from the Pulitzer Prize–winner whose poems have been praised "as genuine, moving, and implausible as the first caressing breeze of spring" (The New York Times). In this stunning collection of forty poems—nineteen previously unpublished—she writes of nature and love, of the way they transform over time. And the way they remain constant. And what did you think love would be like? A summer day? The brambles in their places, and the long stretches of mud?
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Flowers in every field, in every garden, with their soft beaks and their pastel shoulders? On one street after another, the litter ticks in the gutter. In one room after another, the lovers meet, quarrel, sicken, break apart, cry out. One or two leap from windows. Most simply lean, exhausted, their thin arms on the sill. They have done all they could. The golden eagle, that lives not far from here, has perhaps a thousand tiny feathers flowing from the back of its head, each one shaped like an infinitely small but perfect spear. "From the chaos of the world, her poems distill what it means to be human and what is worthwhile about life." —Library Journal "Her poems do indeed make us 'shiver with praise.'" —Booklist
Nature, Love, Change
Forty poems attend to nature and love, tracing what shifts over time and what remains.
Come here for
- Nature observed alongside love’s tenderness and strain
- A collection that holds change and constancy together
Expect
- Forty poems, nineteen previously unpublished
- Images that move from lovers’ exhaustion to an eagle’s feathers
Where it sits
| Nature Poetry | 54% |
|---|---|
| LGBTQ+ Poetry | 45% |
| Love Poetry | 42% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Essay Collections
- American Poetry
- LGBTQ+ Poetry
- Nature Poetry
Show all 6 publisher categories
- Women Poets
- Haiku
- Authors
- Mary Oliver
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Published
- April 7, 1998
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Nature and love · Love's change and constancy · What makes life worthwhile
- Reading lane
- Essay Collections