New and Selected Poems, Volume One

Review
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Praise for the poetry of Mary Oliver:

'One of the astonishing aspects of Oliver's work is the consistency of tone over this long period. What changes is an
increased focus on nature and an increased precision with language that has made her one of our very best poets . . .
There is no complaint in Ms. Oliver's poetry, no whining, but neither is there the sense that life is in any way easy .
. . These poems sustain us rather than divert us. Although few poets have fewer human beings in their poems than Mary
Oliver, it is ironic that few poets also go so far to help us forward.' -Stephen Dobyns, New York Times Book Review

'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.' -Stanley Kunitz

'One would have to reach back perhaps to [John] Clare or [Christopher] Smart to safely cite a parallel to Oliver's
lyricism or radical purification and her unappeasable mania for signs and wonders.' -David Barber, Poetry

'I have always thought of poems as my companions-and like companions, they accompany you wherever the journey (or the
afternoon) might lead . . . My most recent companion has been Mary Oliver's The Leaf and the Cloud . . . It's a
brilliant meditation, a walk through the natural world with one of our preeminent contemporary poets.' -Rita Dove,
Washington Post

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About the Author
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A private person by nature, Mary Oliver has given very few interviews over the years. Instead, she prefers
to let her work speak for itself. And speak it has, for the past five decades, to countless readers. The New York Times
recently acknowledged Mary Oliver as “far and away, this country’s best-selling poet.” Born in a small town in Ohio,
Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28; No Voyage and Other Poems, originally printed in the
UK by Dent Press, was reissued in the United States in 1965 by Houghton Mifflin. Oliver has since published many works
of poetry and prose.

As a young woman, Oliver studied at Ohio State University and Vassar College, but took no degree. She lived for several
years at the home of Edna St. Vincent Millay in upper New York state, companion to the poet’s sister Norma Millay. It
was there, in the late ’50s, that she met photographer Molly Malone Cook. For more than forty years, Cook and Oliver
made their home together, largely in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where they lived until Cook’s death in 2005.

Over the course of her long and illustrious career, Oliver has received numerous awards. Her fourth book, American
Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. She has also received the Shelley Memorial Award; a Guggenheim
Fellowship; an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Achievement Award; the Christopher Award and the L.L.
Winship/PEN New England Award for House of Light; the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems; a Lannan
Foundation Literary Award; and the New England Booksellers Association Award for Literary Excellence. Oliver’s essays
have appeared in Best American Essays 1996, 1998, 2001; the Anchor Essay Annual 1998, as well as Orion, Onearth and
other periodicals. Oliver was editor of Best American Essays 2009. Oliver’s books on the craft of poetry, A Poetry
Handbook and Rules for the Dance, are used widely in writing programs.

She is an acclaimed reader and has read in practically every state as well as other countries. She has led workshops at
various colleges and universities, and held residencies at Case Western Reserve University, Bucknell University,
University of Cincinnati, and Sweet Briar College. From 1995, for five years, she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair
for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College. She has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from The Art Institute of
Boston (1998), Dartmouth College (2007) and Tufts University (2008). Oliver currently lives in Provincetown,
Massachusetts, the inspiration for much of her work.

Beacon Press maintains a Mary Oliver website, maryoliver.beacon.org. You can also become a fan on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/poetmaryoliver.

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