By Emma Myers~ Copy Editor
Mary Oliver was a contemporary, American poet born in Cleveland, Ohio. As a young girl, she found solace from a disruptive family in nature, indulging in its natural resources and using it as inspiration for poems.
Oliver never received a formal college degree, but was well-educated in poetry and literature. She was deeply influenced by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and even lived in her home for a brief period, and befriended Millay’s sister, Norma.
Oliver went on to win a Pulitzer prize for her work, after producing numerous books of poetry. She mainly focused her poems on the romanticism of nature, drawing much criticism in her earlier days for being too impersonal. She was notoriously elusive about her private life, but made the shift from impersonal to deeply personal in her book “New and Selected Poems.”
Oliver’s most notorious poem is “Wild Geese”, wherein she explores the intricacies and complexities of human emotion. She incorporates the naturalistic elements of using geese as metaphors, while also delving into her personal side.
She published many works throughout her lifetime, and would publish some within mere years of each other. For example, her book “Dog Songs” (which was published in 2013), was published only a year after her book “A Thousand Mornings.”
Her main goal with her work was to highlight the similarities between humans and nature. She devoted her life to this understanding and was granted many awards because of it. She passed away in Hobe Sound, Florida at the age of 83, in 2019, but her legacy lives on today.
More information can be found about her and other works at the Knight-Capron Library here on campus.
Poetry Foundation. (n.d.-b). Mary Oliver. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-oliver
Wild Geese Summary & Analysis By Mary Oliver. LitCharts. (n.d.). https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/mary-oliver/wild-geese#:~:text=Human%20Vulnerability%20and%20Suffering,loneliness%20from%20time%20to%20time.
