Mary Oliver was born in Ohio in 1935, and writes both poetry and prose. She publishes a new collection of work almost every year. According to The Poetry Foundation her main themes “continue to be the intersection between the human and the natural world, as well as the limits of human consciousness and language in articulating such a meeting.” The New York Times described her as “far and away, this country’s best-selling poet.”
In Singapore, in the airport,
A darkness was ripped from my eyes.
In the women’s restroom, one compartment stood open.
A woman knelt there, washing something in the white bowl.
Disgust argued in my stomach
and I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.
A poem should always have birds in it.
Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings.
Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.
A waterfall, or if that’s not possible, a fountain rising and falling.
A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
When the woman turned I could not answer her face.
Her beauty and her embarrassment struggled together,
and neither could win.
She smiled and I smiled. What kind of nonsense is this?
Everybody needs a job.
Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
But first we must watch her as she stares down at her labor,
which is dull enough.
She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays, as big as hubcaps,
with a blue rag.
Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.
She does not work slowly, nor quickly, like a river.
Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird.
I don’t doubt for a moment that she loves her life.
And I want her to rise up from the crust and the slop and
fly down to the river.
This probably won’t happen.
But maybe it will.
If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?
Of course, it isn’t.
Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only
the light that can shine out of a life. I mean
the way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth,
The way her smile was only for my sake; I mean
the way this poem is filled with trees, and birds.
In her poem “Singapore,” Mary Oliver uses the situation and setting in order to show the beauty of every person, place, and situation. For example, when the speaker stumbles upon the woman cleaning toilets in the airport bathroom, “a darkness was ripped from her eyes,” and she is inspired. She finds a new subject for her poem and grabs her ticket to jot down her thoughts. She describes the elements every poem should have: birds, rivers, trees, a waterfall. “A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.”
Yet the Singapore airport bathroom is a stark contrast from the setting of a happy poem.
Throughout the poem she tries to convince herself that this is a beautiful situation. She recognizes the beauty in the woman's face, but dismisses her embarrassment. She pays close attention to details such as her small hands. She also equates characteristics of the woman to the elements of a happy poem. For example, the woman "does not work slowly, nor quickly, but like a river." In addition, "her dark hair is like the wing of a bird." The speaker also doesn't "doubt for a minute that she loves her life."
However, eventually the speaker realizes that she cannot make the woman's pain into a "happy place, in a poem." Though she states that she wants the woman to "rise up from the crust and the slop and fly down to the river," she knows this probably won't happen. And yet Mary Oliver has made a beautiful poem out of a dark and dirty setting and a dismal situation. She uses her poem, it's situation, setting, speaker, and details in a unique way to show "the light that can shine out of a life" that may otherwise be overlooked.
