Are you a fan of Mary Oliver poems or just curious about her work? Scroll down to learn more about one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, read some of her poems, and listen to her reading some of her most beloved poems!
About Mary Oliver:
Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019) was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. She found inspiration for her work in nature and had a lifelong habit of solitary walks in the wild. Her poetry is characterized by wonderment at the natural environment, vivid imagery, and unadorned language. In 2007, she was declared the best-selling poet in the United States.
Oliver’s poetry is grounded in memories of Ohio and her adopted home of New England. Provincetown is the principal setting for her work after she moved there in the 1960s. Influenced by both Whitman and Thoreau, she is known for her clear and poignant observations of the natural world. According to the 1983 Chronology of American Literature, her collection American Primitive “presents a new kind of Romanticism that refuses to acknowledge boundaries between nature and the observing self.” Nature stirred her creativity, and Oliver, an avid walker, often pursued inspiration on foot. Her poems are filled with imagery from her daily walks near her home: shore birds, water snakes, the phases of the moon, and humpback whales. In Long Life, she writes, “[I] go off to my woods, my ponds, my sun-filled harbor, no more than a blue comma on the map of the world but, to me, the emblem of everything.” She once said: “When things are going well, you know, the walk does not get rapid or get anywhere: I finally just stop and write. That’s a successful walk!”
(via Wikipedia)
What is the definitive collection of Mary Oliver Poems ?
If we had to buy one single book of Mary Oliver’s poems, we would buy Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (2017) “It’s as if the poet herself has sidled beside the reader and pointed us to the poems she considers most worthy of deep consideration.” —Chicago Tribune
Read some Mary Oliver poems elsewhere online:
- The Real Prayers are not the Words … (Poetry Foundation)
- Every Morning (Poetry Foundation)
- What is it? (Poetry Foundation)
- Forty Years (Poetry Foundation)
- Song for Autumn (Poetry Foundation)
- Beans (Poets.org)
Here are some of our favorite Mary Oliver poems read aloud by the poet…
The Summer Day
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