Vlasak Oliver. In a 1994 interview with Renee Olander, Oliver describes herself as "a serious thirteen-year-old" who wanted to write. In 1950 when Oliver was fifteen, she wrote a letter to Norma Millay Ellis, the sister of the recently deceased Edna St. Vincent Millay, requesting permission to visit Steepletop, Millay's home in upstate New York. This initial visit was followed by more visits and eventually an extended stay during which Oliver assisted in the task of organizing Millay's papers.
In her 1995 prose volume, Blue Pastures, Oliver states that she was "young, and deeply moved by the intimacy of living in the poet's house, among her possessions." The lyrical influence of Millay upon Oliver's early work is apparent, and many parallels can be drawn between the lives of Millay and Oliver, as both embraced country life, studied at Vassar, and moved in the bohemian circles of Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Oliver also studied at Ohio State University.
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