Dog Songs
by Mary Oliver, John Burgoyne (Illustrator)
Paperback, 121 pg.
Penguin Press, 2013
Read: December 6 – 11, 2018
Be prepared. A dog is adorable and noble.
A dog is a true and noble friend. A dog
is also a hedonist.
I don’t know if I’ve posted about poetry here before. Probably not. Despite many attempts (when I was younger) — including a few classes, I’m just not a poetry guy. I can appreciate the occasional poem — and there are a few poets I can really get into, but on the whole? Not my thing.
But part of the 2018 While You Were Reading Challenge, was to read a collection of poetry — and I came close to grabbing an Ogden Nash book off my shelves, but my wife had been given a collection a year or so ago of poems about dogs. And it’s been at least a month since I posted something about dogs, so it’s about time.
So yeah, there are 35 poems about dogs — most of them (all of them?) seem to be based on Oliver’s own dogs — a couple of dogs get a handful of poems about them. Those, obviously, you get a pretty good idea about. Otherwise, it’s just one-shots about some great-sounding dogs.
Oliver does a great job conveying a strong impression about a dog in just a few lines — or even a few words. “He was a mixture of gravity and waggity” is one of the best lines I’ve read in 2018. I do think she goes over the top in terms of the wisdom or deep knowledge, etc. of dogs. But when she focuses on behavior, or personalities of specific animals, I find her pretty entertaining — and even moving.
I’m not saying that I’m going out to grab every Oliver collection in print or anything, but I liked most of these poems — several of them I liked a lot.
There’s also one essay in this slim volume. Skip it. Oliver is a poet, not an essayist.
Does this book need Burgoyne’s illustrations? Nope. But they’re nice to look at, so I’m not complaining. I’d be more than happy to hang some of these around the house.
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