Mary Oliver

Rosemary Anne Lucas (Victoria University)

Ed. by Nick Selby, University of East Anglia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 10 Sep 1935
Died 17 Jan 2019
Activity 1963-2019

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Poet
Teacher/ Professor

Resources

Oliver's Works

Save to Bookshelf

(

Red Bird

, 57)

The prolific writings of Mary Oliver – mainly poetry, but also some essays, memoir and guides to the writing of poetry – each in their different ways, exhort the reader to come and “drink” at the pond of the imagination, to experience an ecstatic and transformative relation with the natural world. Within Oliver’s poetic, it is a relation based particularly around the heightened experiences of looking at, of seeing and feeling one’s place within the perceivable world through a state of mindfulness which recognizes both the otherness of the external world, and the self’s fluid and inter-related connection to that world.

Oliver was born in Maple Heights, Ohio, September 10, 1935. She did attend both Ohio State University and Vassar College, but didn’t complete…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1851 words

Citation: Lucas, Rosemary Anne. "Mary Oliver". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 September 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3413, accessed 21 November 2024.]