Wedding reading
The Summer Day
Mary Oliver
“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver is a poem read at a wedding ceremony. It takes about 40 seconds read aloud, usually by a guest reader. It is still in copyright, so the words are not reprinted here — the reader brings a printed copy.
Why the words are not printed here
Still in copyright. It is in House of Light (Beacon Press, 1990) and again in New and Selected Poems, Volume One — either is a proper copy, and the Academy of American Poets page below carries it with permission. It is short, so the reader can afford to take the last line slowly.
Pieces still in copyright are listed by title and author only — we name them and tell you where to get them, but we do not reproduce the words. Public-domain text is printed in your script in full.
What it is about
Ends on "your one wild and precious life" — which is the line the couple are asking for.
Read at a wedding ceremony. Themes: what to do with a life · paying attention · a grasshopper · an outdoor ceremony · a garden · short.
Questions about reading it aloud
How long does “The Summer Day” take to read aloud?
“The Summer Day” takes about 40 seconds read aloud at a ceremony pace, which is slower than conversation — roughly 130 words a minute. That is the figure the run-sheet uses when it works out the timing for the whole service.
Who usually reads “The Summer Day”?
Usually a guest reader rather than the officiant. “The Summer Day” runs about 40 seconds, which is a manageable amount to hand to a friend or family member. Give them a printed copy of their own, in a size they can read without their glasses, and tell them where to stand and how you will introduce them.
Can “The Summer Day” be printed in a ceremony script?
Not by us. It is still in copyright, so we name it and point you at a copy rather than reprinting the words. Still in copyright. It is in House of Light (Beacon Press, 1990) and again in New and Selected Poems, Volume One — either is a proper copy, and the Academy of American Poets page below carries it with permission. It is short, so the reader can afford to take the last line slowly.
Where to find it
No text is reproduced here, so there is nothing to verify — bring a copy from a published edition.
Checked
A reading is two minutes of the hour.
The rest is the welcome, the vows, the ring exchange, the pronouncement — and the timing that holds them together. Answer some questions about the couple and get the whole ceremony, written out, with this reading in its place.