Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems, follows both chronologically and logically Mary Oliver's American Primitive, which won for her the Pulitzer Prize for the finest book of poetry published in 1983 by an American poet. The depth and diversity of perceptual awareness-so steadfast and radiant in American Primitive-continue in Dream Work. Additionally, she has turned her attention in these poems to the solitary and difficult labors of the spirit-to accepting the truth about one's personal world, and to valuing the triumphs while transcending the failures of human relationships. Whether by way of inheritance-as in her poem about the Holocaust-or through a painful glimpse into the present-as in "Acid," a poem about an injured boy begging in the streets of Indonesia-the events and tendencies of history take on a new importance also. More deeply than in her previous volumes, the sensibility behind these poems has merged with the world. Mary Oliver's willingness to be joyful continues, deepened by self-awareness, by experience, and by choice

Dogfish -- Morning Poem -- Chance to Love Everything -- Trilliums -- Rage -- Wild Geese -- Knife -- Shadows -- Dreams -- River -- Consequences -- Robert Schumann -- Clamming -- Fire -- Banyan -- Whispers -- Driving Through the Wind River Reservation: A Poem of Black Bear -- Members of the Tribe -- Starfish -- Journey -- A Visitor -- House -- Stanley Kunitz -- Orion -- One or Two Things -- Poem -- Marsh Hawks -- Bowing to the Empress -- Turtle -- Sunrise -- Two Kinds of Deliverance -- Swimmer -- Milkweed -- Waves -- Landscape -- Shark -- Storm in Massachusetts, September 1982 -- Acid -- Black Snakes -- Moths -- At Sea -- 1945-1985: Poem for the Anniversary -- At Loxahatchie -- Coming Home -- Sunflowers