Mary Oliver
Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Winning Poet
—Maxine Kumin
“Poems like ‘Some Questions You Might Ask,’ The Hermit Crab,’ ‘Wings,’ ‘Turtle,’ Roses, Late Summer’ take my breath away. What I feel is an immense gratitude that they are written, and that I can read them over and over. I think of Oliver as a fierce, uncompromising lyricist, a loyalist of the marshes. Hers is a voice we desperately need.”
Praise
“One of the astonishing aspects of Oliver’s work is the consistency of tone over this long period [of her career]. What changes is an increased focus on nature and an increased precision with language that has made her one of our very best poets . . . There is no complaint in Ms. Oliver’s poetry, no whining, but neither is there the sense that life is in any way easy . . . These poems sustain us rather than divert us. Although few poets have fewer human beings in their poems than Mary Oliver, it is ironic that few poets also go so far to help us forward.”
—Stephen Dobyns, New York Times Book Review