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
children reading substance
As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other.
kindness believe mischief
I believe in kindness. Also in mischief.
fire rope bread
For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
morning writing thinking
It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning-it'll be gone.
self tree mind
I know I can walk through the world, along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can't really call being alive.
competition doorways special-education
It's not a competition, it's a doorway.
poetry way empty
Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.
reading writing heart
We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy. I spent a great deal of time in my younger years just writing and reading, walking around the woods in Ohio, where I grew up.
home way climbs
I climb, I backtrack. I float. I ramble my way home.
giving-up writing groups
Writers sometimes give up what is most strange and wonderful about their writing - soften their roughest edges - to accommodate themselves toward a group response.
judging swim flow
So this is how you swim inward. So this is how you flow outwards. So this is how you pray.
morning shining world
Why should I not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside, looking into the shining world?
feelings attention reports
Attention without feeling--is only a report.
flower body looks
Look, hasn't my body already felt like the body of a flower?