Poetry Unbound Podcast Project- "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver

The podcast discusses the poem "This Summer Day" by Mary Oliver. The speaker shares a personal experience with grasshoppers and explains how the poem reminds them of summer and pondering life's mysteries. The poem invites us to appreciate the beauty in nature, even in small things like a grasshopper. It ends with thought-provoking questions about making the most of our lives. The speaker suggests that we should cherish the little things and not waste time. The poem is reminiscent of Mary Oliver's love for nature and her ability to find wonder in the world. It also connects to another poem by William Wordsworth about appreciating nature and acknowledging the inevitability of death. Overall, the podcast encourages listeners to find joy and wonder in the world around them and appreciate life's wild and precious moments. Hello and welcome to my podcast. My name is Sasha Smucker and today we're going to be discussing a poem by Mary Oliver called This Summer Day. Now I chose this poem because every summer I go to northern Michigan for a few weeks and I don't know if you've ever been to northern Michigan in July, but I can tell you that there are a lot of grasshoppers. I'll go outside and I'll walk through the grass and there are just hundreds of grasshoppers, just springing out and jumping and flying everywhere and it's kind of ridiculous. But one time I took the time to pick up one of these grasshoppers and I put it in a little cage. I think I was maybe eight years old and I just observed this grasshopper for a while. At first I kind of thought that grasshoppers were just little flying nuisance bugs, but I watched this little grasshopper and I became quite attached to it and I was sad when I had to release it eventually when we were going home. Here is the poem, This Summer Day by Mary Oliver. Who made the world? Who made the swan and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean. The one who has slung herself out of the grass. The one who is eating sugar out of my hand. Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down. Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down in the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? This poem overall has just a really light and happy feeling. It reminds me of summer. I almost feel like I could have written this poem because I often wonder about things such as who created the world and how death will always come too soon. The poem invites us to notice and appreciate the beauty and mystery as well as the wonder to be found in natural things just outside. Something as unremarkable as a grasshopper or another small thing in nature that you might just pass by otherwise. In the last four lines, tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Oliver is asking us these questions to open a window for us to ponder them. It's a happy poem that's just a light tone, but then it ends with these serious questions. What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? I don't think that I could give you an answer to that. Of course, I have plans for what I want to be in life, but this is really a deep and serious question and it's hard to give a definite answer. I think that Mary just wants us to realize how precious life is and to ponder it and appreciate it for all that it is. I think that the insight of this poem is to enjoy all of the little things in life and to make it last without wasting a moment. In the first four lines, it's as if Mary is zooming in. Who made the world? And then she goes to a few smaller animals. Who made the swan and the black bear? And then to an insect. Who made the grasshopper? And then she goes to a specific insect. Who made this grasshopper? I mean the one who has flung herself out of the grass. This scope that's zooming in is almost showing us that we need to zoom in on some small things in life too. We can't just look at the big picture. You also have to notice the small little details of everything in life to fully appreciate it's worth. A helpful thing to know about Mary Oliver is that her poems are almost exclusively about nature and many of her works are inspired by solitary walks that she took in the wilderness. This one I think we can clearly see that. In fact, she says in the poem, I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down in the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through fields, which is what I have been doing all day. I can just picture Mary walking through a field somewhere and noticing a grasshopper and then writing about the experience. This poem is kind of in conversation with the poem, My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth, which is about a man who finds intense joy and wonderment in seeing just a simple rainbow out in nature and how he reflects on how he will always love and worship nature until death. This poem is also talking about just really appreciating a natural thing for all of its beauty and its wonder and simply being amazed. And that poem also touches on death and how everything good will end, but you should always appreciate it all the way until your death. Both of the poems contain a beautiful idea of finding joy and wonder in life and nature, which is something that I will always try to do. I think that we can all take inspiration from this Mary Oliver poem, to just go outside and find something small and see the wonder and the beauty in it and to really appreciate it because life is a wild and precious thing and it deserves to be appreciated and we should all take advantage of it because it won't always last. The Summer Day by Mary Oliver. Who made the world? Who made the swan and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper I mean. The one who has flung herself out of the grass. The one who is eating sugar out of my hand. Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down. Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down in the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?