Thirst, a collection of forty-three new poems from the Pulitzer Prize-winner Mary Oliver, introduces two new directions in the poet's work. Grappling with grief at the death of her beloved partner of over forty years, she strives to experience sorrow as a path to spiritual progress, grief as part of loving and not its end. And within these pages she chronicles for the first time her discovery of faith, without abandoning the love of the physical world that has been a hallmark of her work for four decades. In three stunning long poems, Oliver explores the dimensions and tests the parameters of religious doctrine, asking of being good, for example, "To what purpose? / Hope of Heaven? Not that. But to enter / the other kingdom: grace, and imagination, / and the multiple sympathies: to be as a leaf, a rose,/ a dolphin."
- ISBN10 0807068969
- ISBN13 9780807068960
- Publish Date 15 October 2006 (first published 1 January 2006)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Beacon Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 88
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780807068960