Summary

In American Primitive, Oliver describes small moments, including a beautiful day in “August,” the act of burying a deformed and stillborn kitten in “The Kitten,” and two snakes moving across the ground in “The Snakes.” She also delivers earlier versions of the natural portraits she is so well-known for in “Moles,” “Clapp’s Pond,” and “The First Snow.” The poem “Ghosts” is an early prototype of the ambitious, multi-sectioned longer poems to which Oliver gravitated at the middle point in her career. “Tecumseh” is a more detailed exploration of an idea that Oliver only touches on more briefly later in her career — the way her own intense relationship with the natural world prompts her to think about the Native Americans who were driven from their land.

The two poems Oliver has collected for Devotions...