Mary Oliver's piece of reading Of power and time - Essay Example

 OF POWER AND TIME by Mary Oliver Of power and time by Mary Oliver is an exciting piece of reading because of the passionate and very deep manner that the writer explores the ideas and themes evident in the article that makes one relate to them. The distractions that lead to concentration loss vividly enumerated descriptively by the author, which make it a fascinating read include someone calling, erasers, pencils, privacy, and papers. Oliver explains that the slightest distraction even by the thought itself can make a thought in the edge of one’s mind to fly away. Talking through the thought being a distraction by itself then swiftly moving to explain her childhood, education and its benefit, the need to be extraordinary to be an artist, on her being and living in the extraordinary and she finally cautions on the need to give power and time to creative tendencies to avoid regret. The progression of the author through the article makes the essay exciting, thoughtful, and inspiring making it a fascinating piece of reading. Features of the essay that appeal to me Use of spacing at the end of each stanza allows the reader to note a difference in the message being relayed by the author and allows for reflection on the ideas generated in the previous stanza. The author uses a combination of short and long sentences in the essay to increase the effectiveness of the essay in passing the intended message to the audience. This ensures the reader is not bored by long sentences and is captivated in the course of the essay to the end. Descriptive elegance in the essay is the other feature that makes the essay very appealing and interesting to interact with. Mary Oliver presents the essay in a manner that makes the reader relate to her on how to be a writer, the technicalities involved, and the need to have a peaceful atmosphere without the slightest disturbance even of one’s own thoughts. Descriptive elegance is evident in the essay in, “Creative work needs solitude. It needs concentration, without interruptions”, and “There is no other way work of artistic worth can be done. And the occasional success, to the striver, is worth everything” (Oliver, 1995). It is with effortless brilliance that Mary Oliver describes her world as a portrayal of her situation to the reader making the essay more inspiring to readers through its descriptive elegance. Point in mind is the description of her position and the movement of the clock, “It is a silver morning like any other. I am at my desk” and “The clock! That twelve-figured moon skull, that white spider belly! How serenely the hands move with their filigree pointers, and how steadily!” (Oliver, 1995). The reader is absorbed to her world and is transformed by her use of description to make the reader part of the essay and clarify on the art of thinking and writing making it awesome in an amazing manner. Relevance to my own life The words of Oliver Mary describe my life in terms of my constant struggle to balance ordinary life and creative life. Writing and the interruptions that very frequently occur in life depicted in the essay is a clear description of the life I struggle with each day in the aim of churning out the best art. I believe the essay is relevant today and will be relevant in future days due to the struggles, which everyone tries to understand artists and the increasing proportion of artists working on different forms of art. The essay has led me to visualize on the subject of art and the creative process. She has made me realize that the creative process has to take precedence over the other activities and interruptions that come the way of the artist. The creative process also requires the concentration of the efforts of a writer at all times, as there is no specific position or place for the creative process to occur. Voice, tone, and style The tone in the essay is serious as the author aims at augmenting our understanding of the most conducive environment for one to be an artist and ensure the produce art that last for eternity. This makes the essay readable ensuring the reader gives the essay the seriousness it deserves. The serious tone is consistent with the purpose and the audience of the paper. The style used by the author is consistent throughout the essay engaging the reader and increases the integrity in the essay. Formal diction is also used by the author as a measure of portraying the seriousness of the message relayed in the essay to the reader. This entails the use of the best words that clearly express the theme of an artist’s requirement when working. She states, “There is no other way work of artistic worth can be done” (Oliver, 1995), showing the use of clear and concise wording to present the theme. She also states “Creative work needs solitude”, without mincing her words she conveys to the reader her point, hence her formal diction works best and makes the essay a wonderful piece of art. Rhetorical strategies that is most persuasive A rhetorical strategy used in the essay is amplification that aims at providing emphasis on the main theme in the essay. The lines “All its vistas are just so broad-are regular.”“, another day is passing, a regular and ordinary day”, and “You want this flight to be ordinary, not extraordinary” (Oliver, 1995), are all aimed at expressing the ordinary and regular life that ordinary people wish to live. Oliver, however, aims at contrasting the life of an artist in their imagination and thinking where artist require an environment beyond the ordinary. This is well summarized by Oliver in line “The extraordinary is what art is all about” (Oliver, 1995). The other points where Oliver amplifies the idea that art is in the extraordinary world are “No one yet has made a list of places where the extraordinary may happen and where it may not” and “For they are in another world altogether. It is a world where the third self is governor” (Oliver, 1995). Using amplification, Oliver reiterates the fact that art requires a world beyond the ordinary for its generation of the best pieces of history that will last eternally. The second rhetorical strategy used by the poet is personification as a measure of showing the actions that interrupt an artist in their work. This is exemplified in the lines, “And the thought which I had in hand, or almost in hand, is gone”, “It needs the whole sky to fly in”, “Then you return to your work, only to find that the imps of idea have fled back into the mist” (Oliver, 1995). This serves to enumerate the fact that an interruption results in loss of thought through giving thought the ability to go away. Oliver uses rhetorical questions in the essay as a measure of making the reader think further and examine their lives in a different perspective. This is aimed at making the person to examine the difference between the life of an ordinary person and an artist as shown in, “What quarrel can there be with that?” and “Not that it is so simple, in fact-for what shoemaker does not occasionally thump his thumb when his thoughts have, as we would say, “wandered”?” (Oliver, 1995). In conclusion, there are differing skills, strategies, and qualities evident in the essay, Of Power and Time by Mary Oliver, which makes it a persuasive and fascinating read. Use of spacing, descriptive elegance, and serious tone of voice, formal diction, and style consistency from start to end are the main features that make the essay amazing. Oliver uses rhetorical devices including personification, amplification, and rhetorical questions to examine and bring into context different her views on writing and art in general making the essay Of Power and Time a timeless piece of art that explains art to generations of the present and future. Reference Oliver, M. (1995). Blue pastures. New York: Harcourt Brace. Read More