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
jesus faces moose
The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus.
rushing mind wonderful
And now I understand something so frightening &wonderful- how the mind clings to the road it knows, rushing through crossroads, sticking like lint to the familiar.
dog rain law
A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the trees, or the laws which pertain to them ... A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing. . .
people want fancy
People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work.
clear understood knows
One thing I do know is that poetry, to be understood, must be clear.
spiritual fun lovely
The world is: fun, and familiar, and healthful, and unbelievably refreshing, and lovely. And it is the theater of the spiritual; it is the multiform utterly obedient to a mystery.
prayer thinking interesting
I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involuntary in my life.
believe done too-much
If I've done my work well, I vanish completely from the scene. I believe it is invasive of the work when you know too much about the writer.
love-you woods gone
If you have ever gone into the woods with me, I must love you very much.
dog adorable loving-friends
A dog is adorable and noble, a dog is a true and loving friend. A dog is also a hedonist.
reading writing years
I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not giving readings.
healing whimsy whimsical
You must not ever stop being whimsical.
done easy
What I have done is learn to love and learn to be loved. That didn't come easy.
writing thinking ideas
It is no use thinking that writing of poems - the actual writing - can accommodate itself to a social setting, even the most sympathetic social setting of a workshop composed of friends. It cannot. The work improves there and often the will to work gets valuable nourishment and ideas. But, for good reasons, the poem requires of the writer not society or instruction, but a patch of profound and unbroken solitude.