The Black Snake

"The Black Snake"

by Mary Oliver

Detail of black snake from http://www.atthruhiker.org/photos/week7-8/index.htm

This poem first appeared in Ploughshares (Spring 1979) and Oliver's collection Twelve Moons that same year. Click here for the text (scroll down). It can also be found in The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, vol. 2, third edition (653).

Discussion questions:

What do you find important about the comparisons made in the poem?
Why is death italicized in the first and fourth stanzas?
What important resonances do you find with Lawrence's "Snake"?
What comparisons might you make to between this poem and poems by Denise Levertov?

Created by Stan Galloway 24 August 2005. Last updated 24 August 2005. Contact me at sgallowa@bridgewater.edu