“The Journey” is an interesting poem with deep meaning and voice written by Mary Oliver. Known for her connection with nature through her works, Mary Oliver is widely considered the country’s best selling poet. Her many awards and honors don’t give her work enough justice. She uses her voice and writing style to grab her readers. She uses her writing techniques and elements in “The Journey” to create a deeper meaning than first meets the eye. In her poem ‘The Journey”, author Mary Oliver uses imagery and nature as elements to express deeper meaning within the text.

Imagery is one of the more well-known elements used in writing. Drawing pictures in the readers’ minds has always been a goal for writers to make their audience feel connected and like they can really visualize what’s happening. Softschools describes imagery as “the literary term used for language and description that appeals to our five senses.” Oliver does a great job of appealing to multiple senses throughout her poem. One sense she appeals to is hearing. The poem references multiple times the voices that talk to her. she even goes as far to include dialogue in the poem. “’Mend my life!’ each voice cried”. This really applies to the readers hearing and helps them understand and connect to the reading more. It makes the reader pause and really think about it. It sounds like she is begging the reader to do this and it really makes people shudder at that thought. But what really makes this poem a good source of imagery is the way it applies to multiple senses, the next one being sight. Probably the most common sense connected to, sight is very important in imagery. An author uses sight to help the reader see the setting and understand what’s going on around the characters. “It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones”. Oliver really wants the reader to be able to close their eyes and picture this dark, unsafe road, which sounds like it was destroyed by a storm. The third and final sense that Oliver connects to is touch. There is one big example found in this text. “though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles.” Using senses like this can really make the reader pause and absorb the text. The author wants the readers to forget what is going on in the real world and get sucked into her work. Oliver knows the readers want to feel the power behind her words. She writes with the sole purpose of expressing her voice in a way capturing her audience. Oliver does a great job of captivating the audience and using imagery as an element to express deeper meaning in “The Journey”.

Although not technically a writing element, Oliver uses nature to symbolize the tough journey of life. Always being outdoors, Oliver is able to use her passion to really impact her writing in “The Journey”. She is able to use metaphors, personification, and symbolism all through nature. The most broad and deep source of nature is symbolism. Oliver first writes about a dark road. This most likely symbolizes the hard path through society one must take to find themselves. The next example was when Oliver wrote “the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds”. Based on context clues this clearly symbolizes hope shining through the darkness and the bad times coming to an end. Another way the author uses nature is through personification. “Though the wind pried with its stiff fingers…”, after analyzing this text it is clear that wind can not pry with stiff fingers. Personification is defined as giving objects human characteristics, which Oliver clearly uses here. This element is used to enhance the writing and help the reader understand the wind. One final element the author uses is extended metaphor. Oliver uses this element to compare the voices talked about throughout the poem to society and the impact on yourself. “Though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice…”. The character in the poem is battling with all these other voices, when the one voice she should be listening to, their own, surfaces. Oliver uses this metaphor to give the poem a deeper meaning and to make the reader think deeper about what really is going on. Nature has always been a big part in Mary Oliver’s work, and she used it brilliantly by applying it with elements in her poem “The Journey”.

Writing elements are what makes reading enjoyable and interesting, and author Mary Oliver does this very well in her poem “The Journey”. Oliver uses both imagery and Nature as elements to expand deeper meaning in her text. She is able to use her voice to express three senses and multiple examples using nature all in a relatively short poem, which is incredible. “The Journey” is a poem with interesting content and a deeper meaning that is captured using the writing elements Oliver portrayed.