At the onset of her career as a poet, Mary Oliver seems almost literally to have followed in the footsteps of Edna St. Vincent Millay, whose lyrical manner influenced Oliver's early work. Both were "c...
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The writing career of poet Mary Oliver spans three decades. She has produced thirteen volumes of poetry and prose and two books on the craft of writing poetry. Oliver's poetry offers a transcendental ...
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Critical Essay by Philip Booth
In the title poem which begins ["No Voyage"], Mary Oliver recognizes that there is no possibility of voyaging beyond grief: in a "fallen city / On ...
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Critical Essay by Robert H. Glauber
Mary Oliver uses her poems [in No Voyage] to recall in the most controlled tones the country scenes of her childhood and adolescence. She is gifted with a kind of ...
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Critical Essay by James Dickey
[Mary Oliver is good in "No Voyage"] but predictably good; one could have foretold her form reading anthologies and the poetry magazines of the day. She n...
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Critical Essay by Joyce Carol Oates
[The Night Traveler is] conventional in style and vision…. Judging from the rhythms of "Blackleaf Swamp" … [Mary Oliver] has read, and ...
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Critical Essay by Robert De Mott
The news Mary Oliver reports in The Night Traveler is not the kind to be found in our daily papers, but will be familiar to anyone with an abiding interest in the net...
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Critical Essay by Hugh Seidman
As their titles suggest (e.g., "Mussels," "The Black Snake," "The Fawn" and so on), Mary Oliver's poems [in "Twe...
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Critical Essay by Jeff Schiff
[What attracts me in Twelve Moons] is the intellectual delay it creates. Most of these poems function in such a way as to combat absolute cerebral comprehension. The ima...
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Critical Essay by Emily Grosholz
[Twelve Moons is a] book whose subject is nature and the place of human creature in it. When Oliver holds to her sense of respectful distance, the poems succeed very ...
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Kaufman is an American educator and writer. In the following excerpt, he finds Oliver's poems in No Voyage, and Other Poems to be more personal than the work of Edna St. Vincent Millay.
In M...
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In the following interview, Oliver discusses poetry criticism, poetry workshops, and how her poetry has changed since her early work.
Mary Oliver's poetry both celebrates the natural world a...
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In the following review, Swanson finds House of Light to be a contemplative exploration of the paradoxes of nature to reveal the self.
We have come to expect images of the natural world in Mary Oli...
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In the following excerpt, Richman reviews House of Light and finds it to be an optimistic work concerned with the cycles of life.
Mary Oliver's work seems to inhabit an aesthetic domain unsu...
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In the following excerpt, Sampson asserts that House of Light "yields … to everything in nature that is holy."
What does it mean to have a vision in our time, "in this c...
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In the following review, Upton notes Oliver's connection of dissimilar images in House of Light.
Mary Oliver is yet another mature poet—one with whom many of us have much greater fami...
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In the following review of House of Light, Howard finds that Oliver's poems "evoke the fears, sorrows, and joys of the solitary spirit."
Mary Oliver's purpose is as rare...
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In the following excerpt, Baker questions the "isolationist" and "righteous" tendencies in Oliver's poetry.
Like Stanley Plumly, Mary Oliver is a poet who reworks...
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In the following excerpt, Dobyns reviews New and Selected Poems and notes the consistency in tone and an "increased precision with language" over the thirty-year period featured.
Ever...
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In the following review of New and Selected Poems, Selman praises Oliver's composure, sincerity, and dedication to her subject.
It's a beautiful winter day—one can't hel...
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In the following review, Kitchen notes a disparity between earlier poems which feature a division between nature and narrator and later poems in which the narrator becomes one with nature.
Her [Oli...
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Wright is an American poet and educator. In the following review, she finds in Oliver's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection both stunningly original and cliched elements.
This sixth volume of ...
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In the following review of New and Selected Poems, Kumin praises Oliver for "reaching for the unattainable while grateful for its unattainability."
Mary Oliver is a patroller of wetla...
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In the following review, Barber praises Oliver for her unique presence in contemporary poetry, but finds that New and Selected Poems fails to adequately show her growth as a poet.
With apologies to...
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In the following excerpt, Oppenheimer reviews New and Selected Poems and praises Oliver for maintaining an honest balance in her portrayals of nature.
Mary Oliver's poetry regards nature wit...
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In the following review, Reynolds applauds Oliver for going beyond a how-to format to "connect the conscious mind and the heart."
Most of us have a natural aversion to books that pres...
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In the following excerpt, Hosmer reviews New and Selected Poems and praises Oliver's work for its simplicity and clarity.
The work gathered in Mary Oliver's impressive New and Selecte...
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In the following essay, Graham discusses Oliver's (and by extension, her readers') ability to "become" the various natural bodies she writes about.
We belong to the moon...
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In the following review, Smith praises A Poetry Handbook for providing an incisive guide for students of poetry and notes an emphasis on storytelling and mythmaking in White Pine.
I have before me ...
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Tillinghast is an American poet and educator. In the following review, he praises Oliver for handling "description with a satisfying, jeweler's precision" in White Pine.
Readin...
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Ostriker is an American poet, editor, and educator. In the following excerpt, she applauds the lyricism of Dream Work and notes a shift in emphasis from the natural world in Oliver's earlier wo...
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In the following review, Steinman finds an "almost romantic lyricism" in Dream Work that floats over a deeper personal perspective of the past.
Mary Oliver's Dream Work, the la...
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Gilbert is an American editor, educator, and critic. In the following review, she applauds Oliver for mining the natural world to "learn the lessons of survival."
Compared to [Gail] M...
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In the following essay, Oliver discusses the mechanics of poetry and how length and tone variations can result in a wide range of effects.
1.
All manner of effects can be realized by the choices on...
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In the following essay, Alford discusses the positive, life-affirming aspects that Oliver's poetry uncovers in nature.
Mary Oliver is a distinctive poet in the fashionably surreal and escapi...
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Kuzma is an American poet. In the following review of Dream Work, he praises Oliver's "purity of motive" in expressing the gracefulness of nature.
Mary Oliver's Dream Wo...
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In the following essay, McNew discusses why contemporary critics have difficulty analyzing Oliver's poetry within the framework of the romantic tradition.
The special puzzle of Romanticism ...
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Teaching Mary Oliver
All teaching products sold separately.
New and Selected Poems Lesson Plans contain 122 pages of teaching material, including:
Cash fluttering in the breeze might have seemed like a gift from heaven, but anyone in this western Massachusetts town who grabbed some of it is being asked to please give it back.The money —...
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Pokey Chatman was given two hours to resign or be fired, says her attorney, arguing the former Louisiana State University women's basketball coach is entitled to damages and compensation for the fi...
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