The poem “The Journey” by Mary Oliver, to me, was about one going from conforming to society and doing what everyone else does, to being an independent person and having a voice of their own. Along with that, it is about the journey it takes to get to that independent self and how it may be a tough road with people trying to stop one along the way, but leaving those voices behind and finding one of their own is the key to breaking away from the habit of conforming to society.

One word that I noticed was mentioned a good bit in this poem was “voices”. In the first stanza of the poem Mary Oliver says, “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice…”. This was said to show that even when someone knows internally that they have to change as a person, there are always people who will still try to hold them back. People usually hate to see others succeed so some will do or say anything in order to make one believe the opposite of what is good for them, in order to try and hold them back. Another time that “voices” was said in this poem was, “But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds…”. This was said to show that during one’s journey of going from someone who conforms to society to one who is an individual, the key to doing that successfully is leaving behind those voices who are trying to hold you back. If one does not do that, they will make no progress. The last time “voices” was said in this poem was, “and there were new voices which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do- determined to save the only life you could save.” This is how the poem ends and it was put in there to represent that the person this poem was written about finally started listening to the voice of their own rather than the voices of other people, which ultimately helped them become more of an individual and stop conforming to society.

Another thing I noticed in this poem was the rhythm of the sentences. The way the poem was written makes it seem very choppy to me. It could be read as a normal story, had the sentences not been split up like they were. All of the sentences stopped in random places and were moved to the next line. For me, as a reader, the abnormal rhythm of the poem made it harder for me to follow along, and in the end it made it harder for me to understand what exactly was being conveyed. For example, Mary Oliver says, “But you didn’t stop. / You knew what you had to do, / though the wind pried / with its stiff fingers / at the very foundations, / through their melancholy / was terrible”. That stanza was one of the hardest to read for me just because of the way the sentences were broken up. I had to keep stopping and re-reading because I wasn’t understanding what was happening or why it was being written the way that it was. After taking out the breaks and constructing it into normal sentences in my head, it was easier for me to understand the text and the message that was being conveyed along with it.

The last thing I noticed in this poem that really stuck out to me was the repetitive use of the word “though”. Before the word was mentioned each time, there was usually something said about how one was being held back, and then after the word was mentioned there was something said that showed how one had to push through whatever obstacle was being given, or vice versa. For example, “You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible.” Another example was, “you knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles.” Both of these examples were given to show the repetitive use of the word “though” and how it is used within the text to prove that despite the people trying to hold one back, they know their end goal even if the journey isn’t easy.

In the end, this poem had a lot going on that made it a lot more confusing than it should have been or even needed to be. The theme that I got from this poem was to never let anyone hold you back no matter what you are doing, and to never give up when you are trying to reach a certain goal. Mary Oliver conveyed this theme through “Journey” by the repetitive use of certain words, the overall way the poem was structured, and the overall language that was used throughout the poem as well.