SLEEPING IN THE FOREST
Summary
‘Sleeping in the Forest’ by Mary Oliver is a beautiful poem about one
speaker’s connection to nature.
The poet’s speaker describes going out into the forest to spend the
night in the darkness. She depicts the sounds of the various small
kingdoms and creatures going about their nightly tasks. She sees
sights and hears sounds that she wouldn’t normally during the day.
This experience is one that elevates her beyond her everyday life and
her humanity. She spends the night in luminous darkness and loses
herself several times.
You can read the full poem here.
Themes
Throughout ‘Sleeping in the Forest,’ Oliver engages with the themes
of nature. The speaker spends the entirety of the poem out in the
natural world, sleeping in the darkness of the night. Despite the
darkness, she was provided with a luminous experience. She felt
connected to the natural world in a way that she hadn’t before. It’s
clear from the lines of this piece that the speaker values this
connection highly. It made her feel alive in a new way.
Structure and Form
‘Sleeping in the Forest’ by Mary Oliver is a seventeen-line poem that is
contained within one stanza of text. The lines do not follow a
specific rhyme scheme or metrical pattern. But, the majority of the
lines are between six and ten syllables in length. This helps create a
feeling of unity without a singular structure. Oliver also makes use of
literary devices with this same end goal in mind.
Literary Devices
Throughout ‘Sleeping in the Forest,’ Mary Oliver makes use of several
literary devices. These include, but are not limited to:
Alliteration: the repetition of the same consonant sound at the
beginning of words. For example, “seeds” and “slept” in line four
and “breathing” and “birds” in lines eleven and twelve.
Enjambment: occurs when the poet cuts off a line before its
natural stopping point—for example, the transition between
lines one, two, and three.
Caesura: can be seen when the poet inserts a pause in the
middle of a line of text. For example, “on the riverbed, nothing”
and “I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling.” These can be
created either through the use of punctuation or a natural pause
in the meter.
Imagery: occurs when the poet uses particularly effective
descriptions. For example, “the white fire of the stars” and
“luminous doom.” These are meant to trigger the reader’s
senses, making them feel something.
Detailed Analysis
Lines 1-7
I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
(…)
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
In the first lines of ‘Sleeping in the Forest,’ the speaker begins by
describing what it was like to sleep in the forest. She “thought” that
the earth had taken her back “tenderly,” remembering her from the
times she’d been there before. (This is an example of personification.
The poet gives the earth the capacity to feel.) There was a feeling of
peace and oneness with the earth. The poet’s speaker describes
herself as “a stone / on the riverbed.” This is a great example of
a simile. She’s not saying she was a stone, but that she felt like one.
Her position in the forest left her exposed to the world. There were
no boundaries between her and the “white fire of the stars.” This is a
beautiful image, one that evokes a feeling of aliveness and peace. The
speaker is clearly happy there in the wood.
Lines 8-17
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
(…)
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
In the next lines, she adds that the only thing that separated her from
the stars was her “thoughts.” This element of her existence separates
her from the rest of the natural world. But, despite their presence,
they didn’t do much to restrict her ability to draw close to nature.
They drifted peacefully, like “light as moths among the branches.”
This simile helps the reader envisions not only where the speaker is
but what the atmosphere is like. There is an almost mystical quality to
this experience.
In the next lines, she describes how she heard the “small kingdoms”
of various creatures living and breathing around her. They “do their
work in the darkness.” These small sounds are ones that one wouldn’t
notice if they stayed home or even if they were walking through the
woods during the day.
Another simile follows in the next section of lines when the speaker
describes her experience overnight. She drifted up and down “as if in
water,” contending with the “luminous doom.” The last two words are
an example of an oxymoron. They suggest that the darkness, despite
its lack of light, illuminated the world for the speaker. She learned
something about herself and the rest of her existence.
The final lines of the poem are metaphorical and quite moving. The
speaker describes how she’d “vanished at least a dozen times / into
something better” by morning. She lost track of her own humanity
during the night, experiencing the world from a series of
new perspectives. These, she asserts, were better than how she looks
at the world normally.
