Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver
Mary Oliveris an American poet who has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times described her as "far and away, this country's best-selling poet."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth10 September 1935
CityMaple Heights, OH
CountryUnited States of America
stories
We do not love anything more deeply than we love a story...
adjectives-and-adverbs fifty cents
Every adjective and adverb is worth five cents. Every verb is worth fifty cents.
stars destiny rivers
I would say that there exists a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves-we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together, we are each other's destiny.
home islands risk
Like Magellan, let us find our islands To die in, far from home, from anywhere Familiar. Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.
fifty feels forty
In my own work, I usually revise through forty or fifty drafts of a poem before I begin to feel content with it.
be-good exuberance
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
feelings mind inquiring
A mind that is lively and inquiring, compassionate, curious, angry, full of music, full of feeling, is a mind full of possible poetry.
childhood survival resilience
After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world.
poetry verbs looks
Look for verbs of muscle, adjectives of exactitude.
ideas poetry feelings
Poetry is a serious business; literature is the apparatus through which the world tries to keep intact its important ideas and feelings.
differences soul stubborn
Along with the differences that abide in each of us, there is also in each of us a maverick, the darling stubborn one who won't listen, who insists, who chooses preference or the spirited guess over yardsticks or even history. I suspect this maverick is somewhat what the soul is, or at least that the soul lives close by and companionably with its agitating and inquiring force.
childhood world dysfunctional-family
With words, I could build a world I could live in. I had a very dysfunctional family, and a very hard childhood. So I made a world out of words. And it was my salvation.
power want littles
Everybody has to have their little tooth of power. Everybody wants to be able to bite.
spiritual poetry curiosity
The three ingredients of poetry: the mystery of the universe, spiritual curiosity, the energy of language.