Mary Oliver
Ana Berthel, Carrie Speicher, Natalie Miseo
Early Life
oMary Oliver was born in Ohio near
Cleveland on September 10, 1935.
oHer mother was named Helen Vlassak,
and her father, who was a teacher, was
Edward William.
oShe was around nature often as a child.
oShe attended Ohio State University for
a year, then went to Vassar College;
however, she never earned a degree.
Later Life
 Edna St. Vincent Millay influenced mary
Oliver’s style because Oliver would
occasionally stay at Millay’s farmhouse
and help Millay’s sister
 She moved to Provincetown,
Massachusetts later in life.
 In 1981, Bucknell University appointed her
poet in residence.
 In 1991, she became Margaret Banner
Writer in Residence at Sweet Briar
College.
Interesting Facts
When Mary Oliver writes her poetry, she
often has to go through 50 or 60 rough
drafts before she finds a draft that works
for her.
She does not like for fans of her poetry
to know too much about her because she
believes it is invasive of her work.
She has won many different awards,
including the Pulitzer Prize.
She had a dog named Percy, who she
wrote many poems about.
Style: Content
 The wonders of nature
 Life and death
 Seeing ordinary as extraordinary
Straight Talk From Fox
Listen says fox it is music to run
over the hills to lick
dew from the leaves to nose along
the edges of the ponds to smell the fat
ducks in their bright feathers but
far out, safe in their rafts of
sleep. It is like
music to visit the orchard, to find
the vole sucking the sweet of the apple, or the
rabbit with his fast-beating heart. Death itself
is a music. Nobody has ever come close to
writing it down, awake or in a dream. It cannot
be told. It is flesh and bones
changing shape and with good cause, mercy
is a little child beside such an invention. It is
music to wander the black back roads
outside of town no one awake or wondering
if anything miraculous is ever going to
happen, totally dumb to the fact of every
moment's miracle. Don't think I haven't
peeked into windows. I see you in all your seasons
making love, arguing, talking about God
as if he were an idea instead of the grass,
instead of the stars, the rabbit caught
in one good teeth-whacking hit and brought
home to the den. What I am, and I know it, is
responsible, joyful, thankful. I would not
give my life for a thousand of yours.
Style: Structure
 Many small stanzas or one large stanza
 Mostly first person, occasionally second
person
 Enjambment
The Sun by Mary Oliver
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone-and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance-and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love-do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed-or have you too
turned from this world-or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
Style: Literary Devices
Personification
Similes
Imagery- Visual and Auditory
Repetition
The Swan
Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
Criticism
 “Unwillingness to be like other poets in
her generation”
 “gave women a real voice in poetry”
 “visionary nature poetry”
Criticism
 “language is not artificial, but is a natural bodily, and
material thing”
 “Oliver’s poem are thoroughly convincing-as genuine,
moving and implausible as the first caressing, breeze of
spring”- New York Times
 The music in Oliver’s writing is unmistakable. Her poetry
can be read as the best of the lyrics we have these days,
and its no surprise that she’s already won a Pulitzer
Prize for it, as well as many other honors.” –Los Angeles
Times
And when I began the journey
Of my life, I never thought
I would find someone who so beautifully expressed
the wonders of life:
the plants and animals,
the ordinary things that are really so amazing,
And even the end of life: death itself.
I never thought someone
Could say what I felt.
But Mary Oliver did.