Literary Analysis Of Mary Oliver's Death At Wind River

Poetry is a unique expression of ideas, feelings, and emotions. Every poet has their own style of writing as well as their own personal goals when creating poems. Mary Oliver is a perfect example of these characteristics. Oliver primarily focuses on the topics of nature and life which can be seen everyday. She uses specific patterns and word choice in order to emphasize her focal points and truly connect to the reader. Mary Oliver does an exceptional job in using natural elements to convey complex situations to the reader. Specifically, Oliver uses purposeful language and concise organization of phrases in “Death at Wind River” to highlight the fact that war results in pointless killing and unnecessary grief. Oliver’s “Death at Wind River”consists of four separate stanzas each varying in style and length. At the

The poem transitions into the past tense and mentions their grandmothers and children. In contrast to the first half of this piece, the grandmother is now old and the children are now ghosts. This represents the rambunctious, naive young man looking back on his life and truly beginning to see the pointlessness of his ways. The final line in the third stanza may perhaps be the most important line in the entire poem. Oliver writes “After that, all their nerves click like frozen leaves.” This verse in the poem is referring to the previous two verses which were written in the past tense. Essentially, the young men look back into their lives and understand the pointlessness of young deaths. They can see that life is not all about killing or fighting. Oliver finishes off the poem with the lines “They think of this world welcoming/the bodies of their sons.” Although the young men finally understand the hopelessness of the violence, it is too late as all they can see is the death of their children. The “glory” in fighting in death is now gone, as well as their