A new poetry collection from New York Times bestselling poet and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Mary Oliver
Born in a small town in Ohio, Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28. Over the course of her long career, she has received numerous awards. Her fourth book, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. Oliver currently lives in Florida.
“Oliver’s longtime fans and those who seek spiritual renewal will
find themselves a worthy guide in this sagacious, pantheistic
read.” —Publishers Weekly
“A breezy, inviting collection of love poems that celebrates the
divine as much as it does the natural world or human relationships
. . . An eloquent celebration of simple joy from one of America’s
most beloved poets.” —The Washington Post
“One of the astonishing aspects of Oliver’s work is the consistency
of tone over this long period [of her career]. What changes is an
increased focus on nature and an increased precision with language
that has made her one of our very best poets . . . There is no
complaint in Ms. Oliver’s poetry, no whining, but neither is there
the sense that life is in any way easy . . . These poems sustain us
rather than divert us. Although few poets have fewer human beings
in their poems than Mary Oliver, it is ironic that few poets also
go so far to help us forward.” —Stephen Dobyns, New York Times Book
Review
“It has always seemed, across her 15 books of poetry, five of prose
and several essays and chapbooks, that Mary Oliver might leave us
at any minute. Even a 1984 Pulitzer Prize couldn’t pin her to the
ground. She’d change quietly into a heron or a bear and fly or walk
off forever. Her poems contain windows, doors, transformations,
hints on how to escape the body; there’s the ‘glamour of death’ and
the ‘life after the earth-life’ . . . The new poems teem with
creation: ravens, bees, hawks, box turtles, bears. The landscape is
Thoreauvian: ponds, marsh, grass and cattails; New England’s ‘salt
brightness’; and fields in ‘pale twilight.’ The poems from Why I
Wake Early (2004) are, in contrast, full of white things and
‘untrimmable light’; from Owls and Other Fantasies (2003), of
watery sounds, singing, rain; from West Wind (1997), of starry
distances and traveling.” —Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles
Times Sunday Book Review
“In a region that has produced most of the nation’s poet laureates,
it is risky to single out one fragile 71-year-old bard of
Provincetown. But Mary Oliver, who won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry
in 1984, is my choice for her joyous, accessible, intimate
observations of the natural world. Her “Wild Geese” has become so
popular it now graces posters in dorm rooms across the land. But
don’t hold that against her. Read almost anything in New and
Selected Poems. She teaches us the profound act of paying
attention—a living wonder that makes it possible to appreciate all
the others.” —Renée Loth, Boston Globe
“Oliver’s poems are thoroughly convincing—as genuine, moving, and
implausible as the first caressing breeze of spring.” —New
York Times Book Review
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