Teacher

Mary Oliver



Mary Oliver (1935–2019) was an American poet, teacher, speaker, editor, and prose writer who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, as well as many other honors. Her prolific work is both inspired by and deeply celebratory of nature and how it intersects with the limits of the human world.

Mary Oliver
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Mary Oliver: Poet of Awe

Years before Mindfulness took the world by storm, inviting us to savor the moment, Mary Oliver had long been saying things like: “Attention is our endless and proper work,” “Attention is the beginning of devotion,” and “This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the...

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01:30

Mary Oliver Reads "The Summer Day" (Aka "The Grasshopper")

Mary Oliver reads her poem, "The Summer Day," Copyright 1990. "The Summer Day" first appeared in House of Light (Beacon Press, 1990), and has been reprinted in New and Selected Poems, Volume 1 (Beacon Press, 1992) and The Truro Bear and Other Adventures (Beacon Press, 2008).

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Our World

Mary Oliver, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, is one of the most celebrated poets in America. Her partner Molly Malone Cook, who died in 2005, was a photographer and pioneer gallery owner.

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FindCenter Quotes ImageFinally I saw that everything had come to nothing. and gave it up. and took my old body and went out into the morning and sang.

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Mary Oliver’s Poems Taught Me How to Live

"It is no exaggeration to say that Mary Oliver gave me the blueprint, the road map, for the rest of my life."

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06:36

Mary Oliver with Coleman Barks, 4 Aug 2001

Mary Oliver's poetry, with her lyrical connection to the natural world, has firmly established her in the highest realm of American poets. She is renowned for her evocative and precise imagery, which brings nature into clear focus, transforming the everyday world into a place of magic and discovery.

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House of Light: Poems

This collection of poems by Mary Oliver once again invites the reader to step across the threshold of ordinary life into a world of natural and spiritual luminosity.

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FindCenter Quotes ImageYou must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

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Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things.

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News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness

In News of the Universe, Robert Bly has assembled a uniquely cross-cultural anthology of poems that, taken together, illuminate his vision of human history over the past several centuries.

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