SOURCE: "Natural History," in Village Voice, Vol. 38, No. 2, January 12, 1993, pp. 81-2.

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 help noticing the day when one reads Mary Oliver—a day on which she's won another prize, this time the National Book Award for her seventh book, New and Selected Poems. I think of her at home in Provincetown, where she has a reputation for being something of a recluse. I also think of Elizabeth Bishop, the other National Book Award-winning recluse, with whom Oliver has much in common. Like Bishop, Oliver doesn't go in much for politics, poetic or public. You won't see poems by either of them in women-only anthologies. And the similarities continue: Oliver's poems are not, strictly speaking, personal. She rarely teaches and gives readings far less...