Review
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To read Thirst, is to feel gratititude for the
simple fact of being alive. This is not surprising, as it is the
effect [Oliver's] best work has produced in readers for the past
43 years. —Angela O'Donnell, America Magazine
"Mary Oliver moves by instinct, faith, and determination. She is
among our finest poets, and still growing." —Alicia Ostriker, The
Nation
"It has always seemed, across her [many] books of poetry, . . .
that Mary Oliver might leave us at any minute. Even a 1984
Pulitzer Prize couldn't pin her to the ground. She'd change
quietly into a heron or a bear and fly or walk on forever."
—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
"Mary Oliver. In a region that has produced most of the nation's
poet laureates, it is risky to single out one fragile 71-year-old
bard of Provincetown. But Mary Oliver, who won the Pulitzer Prize
in poetry in 1983, is my choice for her joyous, accessible,
intimate observations of the natural world. Her Wild Geese has
become so popular it now graces posters in dorm rooms across the
land. But don't hold that against her. Read almost anything in
New and Selected Poems. She teaches us the profound act of paying
attention—a living wonder that makes it possible to appreciate
all the others."—Renée Loth, Boston Globe
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About the Author
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A private person by nature, Mary Oliver (1935–2019)
gave very few interviews over the years. Instead, she preferred
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 twenty books of poetry and
six books of 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).
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