“Saved by the Beauty of the World”
If poetry had a pop icon, Mary Oliver would be it. Celebrated bestseller, Pulitzer Prize winner, lover of dogs and long walks in the woods, openly queer but intensely private, Oliver was America’s unlikely contemporary mystic, stalking the ponds and forests of Cape Cod for nearly 50 years in order to open herself – and her readers – to the known and unknowable world. From a lonely childhood to literary fame, Oliver’s life was shaped by devotion to nature, paying attention, and the long journey toward learning to love and to be loved. Her poems inspire liberals and conservatives, atheists and believers, naturalists and urbanites, speaking directly to contemporary anxieties about attention, presence, and the human relationship with the natural world – issues that feel especially pressing in an era of climate crisis, digital distraction, and social fragmentation.
—MSP Website
I took my mom and son to see this independent film today and it will be marked as a new core memory. As I wept, my son wrapped his sweet arm around my shoulder and held me in a way that shared he too was struck by her crafted words of art.
Mary embodies so much of what this site is about. She was masterful at collecting information—she went beyond just looking—she took her observations into depths of reflection never known before because she had a way of then transforming those noticings into print. Words and phrases found their way into the hearts and minds of humans who were yearning for ways to describe what they felt—what they witnessed—what they dreamt.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”