Mary Oliver was born on September 10, 1935 in Maple
Heights, Ohio. As a teenager, she lived briefly in the home
of Edna St. Vincent Millay, where she helped Millay's
family sort through the papers the poet left behind.
In the mid-1950s, Oliver attended both Ohio State
University and Vassar College, though she did not receive a
degree.
Her first collection of poems, No Voyage, and Other Poems,
was published in 1963. Since then, she has published
numerous books, including Thirst (Beacon Press, 2006); Why
I Wake Early (2004); Owls and Other Fantasies : Poems and
Essays (2003); Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems
(1999); West Wind (1997); White Pine (1994); New and
Selected Poems (1992), which won the National Book award;
House of Light (1990), which won the Christopher Award and
the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award; and American
Primitive (1983), for which she won the Pulitzer Prize.
The first part of her book-length poem The Leaf and the
Cloud (Da Capo Press, 2000) was selected for inclusion in
The Best American Poetry 1999 and the second part, "Work,"
was selected for The Best American Poetry 2000. Her books
of prose include Long Life: Essays and Other Writings
(2004); Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and
Reading Metrical Verse (1998); Blue Pastures (1995); and A
Poetry Handbook (1994).
"Mary Oliver's poetry is an excellent antidote for the
excesses of civilization," wrote one reviewer for the
Harvard Review, "for too much flurry and inattention, and
the baroque conventions of our social and professional
lives. She is a poet of wisdom and generosity whose vision
allows us to look intimately at a world not of our making."
Her honors include an American Academy of Arts &
Letters Award, a Lannan Literary Award, the Poetry Society
of America's Shelley Memorial Prize and Alice Fay di
Castagnola Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim
Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Oliver held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for
Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College until 2001.
She currently lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
(http://poets.org)
Mary Oliver
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