Recognizing/Respecting Boundaries: Nature in Mary Oliver’s Early Poetry

Mary Oliver’s poetry has been praised by her critics for challenging the traditional dualistic Western view on nature. Her poetry shows her original idea that humans are complex beings, whose existence is independent from nature, yet simultaneously connected to it. This idea culminates in the use of creative expression such as “going into the body of another,” in which the human “I” transforms into a natural object in the poem. The majority of critical essays dealing with Oliver’s poetry focus on her mid-to-late works starting from American Primitive. In contrast, the significance of Oliver’s earlier works has not been properly addressed. Using Val Plumwood’s ecofeminist theory that revolves around the concept of “self-in-relation,” this paper attempts to demonstrate that Oliver’s original vision of the complex relationship between humans and nature starts to develop in Oliver’s earlier works. Through the concept of “self-in-relation,” Plumwood argues that the awareness of both the continuity and the difference involved in the self/other relationship is necessary to overcome the dualistic power dynamic deeply settled in the Western mind. Oliver’s works in her first poetry collection, No Voyage and Other Poems (1986), record moments when the human speaker “I” recognizes and respects the difference between self and nature. These moments provide insights into Oliver’s unique ecological vision, in which the self and nature can exist as independent beings preserving their agency and individuality intact, and simultaneously as connected beings in interrelationship.