While I was at science camp in the middle of the mountains and the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia, a few of my fellow campers introduced me to the poetry of Mary Oliver. Not familiar with Mary Oliver? Think along the lines of Walt Whitman and Henry Thoreau and you are already several steps in the right direction. The late U.S. poet laureate Stanley Kunitz said of Oliver’s work: “Mary Oliver’s poetry is fine and deep; it reads like a blessing. Her special gift is to connect us with our sources in the natural world, its beauties and terrors and mysteries and consolations.”
Mary Oliver, now 75, was born on September 10, 1935 in Maple Heights, Ohio, though she now lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She began writing poetry at the age of fourteen, more or less living with the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay for nearly seven years. Oliver helped the late poet organize her papers, but also enjoyed exploring the 700-acre property. Oliver, inspired by both the poet and the landscape, went on to write a great deal of poetry about nature, often simply based on daily walks, pursuing inspiration on foot. She is known for her clear and poignant observances of the natural world.
Oliver briefly attended both Ohio State University and Vassar College, but did not receive a formal degree from either university. However, in 1997, she received an Honorary Doctorate from the Art Institute in Boston. More recently, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Dartmouth College (2007) and Tufts University (2008). Oliver’s fifth collection of poetry, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. In 1984, she received the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems.
If you remember reading and liking works by Whitman and Thoreau, but have never checked out Mary Oliver, now is the time to do so. Her most recent collection of poems, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems was released this past September. You can expect to see more collections published in upcoming years, but in the meantime, you will find several decades’ worth of Oliver’s work to satisfy any craving for beautifully basic, naturalist poems.
