SOURCE: "Inside History," in Belles Lettres, Vol. 6, No. 4, Summer, 1991, pp. 42-4.

In the following review, Upton notes Oliver's connection of dissimilar images in House of Light.

Mary Oliver is yet another mature poet—one with whom many of us have much greater familiarity. While Eavan Boland works with domestic interiors, Mary Oliver sets her lens in nature. She writes of lilies and turtles and owls as if each possessed a soul and a singular identity. At times she echoes Walt Whitman, finding peace among animals for their very lack of consciousness, their inability to quarrel or irritate. Despite the note of horror and sudden menace in this book, she proceeds with near mystical love for her subjects.

For Oliver, every day must have "one splash of happiness." Her own happiness seems to arise from connecting images and actions that initially appear dissimilar and arbitrary.

Some of her virtues...