Description and Analysis of Poems: Mushrooms

 Hello, everyone! Welcome to my blog. In this post, I will introduce a poem that was assigned to me to analyze. I paired up with Ruka, my classmate. We presented it last year.

 The poem is called "Mushrooms" by Mary Oliver. Oliver is an American poet who has won numerous awards. Her poems are inspired by her walks in the wild. Her poems' theme is the connection between nature and people.

Mushrooms

Rain, and then
the cool pursed
lips of the wind
draw them
out of the ground -
red and yellow skulls
pummeling upward
through leaves,
through grasses,
through sand; astonishing
in their suddenness,
their quietude,
their wetness, they appear
on fall mornings, some
balancing in the earth
on one hoof
packed with poison,
others billowing
chunkily, and delicious -
those who know
walk out to gather, choosing
the benign from flocks
of glitterers, sorcerers,
russulas,
panther caps,
shark-white death angels
in their town veils
looking innocent as sugar
but full of paralysis:
to eat
is to stagger down
fast as mushrooms themselves
when they are done being perfect
and overnight
slide back under the shining
fields of rain.

 The poem describes mushrooms and their habitats. There are many varieties of mushrooms. Some are edible, and some are poisonous. Although they have their differences, mushrooms that are not picked by people or animals wither away and return to the earth.

 Just as in her other poems, the quiet occurrences of nature are shown. Although the poem focuses on the mushrooms that are born and die in the wild, I assume that mushrooms that are picked up by hunters also end up in the ground.

 The poem tells the lifecycle of the mushrooms. I like how I can imagine the faint sound of rain. I am not really fond of them, but I am interested in the many types of mushrooms.