Alice Van Wart teaches literature and writing in the Department of Continuing Education at the University ofToronto. She has published two books of poetry and has written articles on modern and contemporary literature. In the following essay, Van Wart analyzes the relationship between the teacher and student in "Music Lessons" while elaborating on Oliver's exploration into human nature (and nature) and the fleeting transcendence of life's tedious experiences inspired by the medium of music (or culture) and its playing.

Mary Oliver caught the attention of the public with her third collection of poetry, American Primitive, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. The poems in this collection pulse with the drama of human life and nature, and with wit, love, yearning and grief, qualities that define Oliver's poetry. Writing on a wide range of subjects in both free verse and in the traditional discipline of rhyme...