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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 view of the natural world in terms accessible to the twentieth-century reader. In particular she depicts the New England landscape with metaphors underscoring the lessons humans can derive from nature. Among Oliver's many honors are a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1972), a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (1980), and an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Achievement Award (1983). In 1984 Oliver was the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for poetry following the publication of American Primitive (1983). House of Light (1990) won both the Christopher Award and the L. L. Winship Award in 1991, and New and Selected Poems (1992) won the National Book Award in 1992. Douglas Burton-Christie explains the vast appeal of Oliver's poetry: "Oliver evokes a deeply integrated spirituality of the ordinary, helping us to see and embrace what is, after all, one world, where nature, spirit and imagination rise together."
Mary Oliver was born in Cleveland, Ohio; her parents were a teacher, Edward William Oliver, and Helen M.
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