#Mary oliver the journey free#
The poem is written in free verse with no stanza breaks. There will be obstacles and dangers on the path but despite what is thrown your way, you have to proceed with determination, courage and confidence to listen to your own inner voice. It is a wild night and the road is “full of fallen branches and stones”.
You realize that you do not have to conform to the constraints imposed by society. But you ignore their terrible “melancholy” and do what is right for you. Inflexible in their views, the people around you may try relentlessly to demoralize you or dissuade you from following your path through manipulation and guilt trips. The personification of the wind that “pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations” is a powerful device to show what you have to contend with. It also emphasizes in an unequivocal manner that ‘you’ and ‘you’ alone are in charge of your destiny. The use of the second person also establishes the universality of the poem. It is a direct conversation with the reader, informal in tone. It is interesting that the speaker employs the second person ‘you’ in the poem and uses it repeatedly. They can give bad advice or drain your energy by asking you to fix their lives. They can do anything in their power to jeopardize your journey. The voices of opposition can be loud and overbearing. You have to ignore “the old tug at your ankles”, be it of a controlling relative, a needy friend or a difficult co-worker and continue with your journey to discover who you truly are. We have all at some point experienced the moment when we have to break free from what our family or community members expect of us to follow our own path and leave our own mark in the world. In fact, I cannot imagine it not striking a chord with anyone who reads it. I would still like to honor the month-long celebration by sharing and examining a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver that resonates with me deeply. For me every month is poetry month and every day is poetry day.
April is ‘National Poetry Month’ in the United States.
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