QUILTBAG poetry: some notes on Mary Oliver

[zirconium]

As a Unitarian Universalist, I encounter Mary Oliver's poetry several times a year -- some of her poems are in the church hymnal and others show up as service readings or meditation texts. Her primary publisher, Beacon Press, is a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association (and known for, among other things, publishing the Pentagon Papers).

Mary Oliver and Molly Malone Cook were partners for forty years. Cook died in 2005. There is an excerpt from Cook's obituary here, which mentions Cook's earlier relationship with Lorraine Hansberry.

There is a photo of Oliver and Cook here. There is an interview of Oliver in the archives of O Magazine that includes this exchange:

Maria Shriver: You've written in your work that you rarely spent any time apart. How did you avoid being crushed by losing her?

Mary Oliver: I had decided I would do one of two things when she died. I would buy a little cabin in the woods, and go inside with all my books and shut the door. Or I would unlock all the doors -- we had always kept them locked; Molly liked that sense of safety -- and see who I could meet in the world. And that's what I did. I haven't locked the door for five years. I have wonderful new friends. And I have more time to be by myself. It was a very steadfast, loving relationship, but often there is a dominant partner, and I was very quiet for 40 years, just happy doing my work. I'm different now.

Oliver's collection Thirst (2005) is sitting on my Kindle for PC as a loan from the Nashville Public Library. The e-book coding doesn't appear to be compatible with my reader, since different lines show up in different font sizes each time I open the file, which imposes odd emphasis on sections that were not intended to be typographically distinct from their neighbors. That said, the convenience can't be beat -- I was able to "borrow" the book without leaving the house, and the program let me highlight and bookmark the sections I wanted to mention in this post. These include poems that appear to be specifically in reference to Cook's death ("After Her Death" and "What I Said at Her Service" -- the latter comprises only three lines, but in my view is one of the most powerful poems in the book) and lines about Oliver's dog, Percy (named after Shelley, but "[m]aybe we should have named him William, since Wordsworth almost never died").

The library copy of the book also records the marks made by its earlier borrowers. So it is telling me that eight people highlighted the poem "Praying," four people highlighted "The Uses of Sorrow," and at least six other people were struck by the same line in the Epilogue that had me reaching for the digital highlighter: "Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart."

Comments

[ashestosnow]

I love Mary Oliver's poetry. There's something profound and altering in every one of her works: you come out of it seeing things from a new perspective. Even the titles are powerful, sometimes; for example, "Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?"

Love shines through in her writing, in all its forms. Love for nature, love for others, love for self.

[rbarenblat]

This is a lovely post -- thank you for it.

Mary Oliver's poems appear also in the Reconstructionist (Jewish) daily prayerbook. There's one in particular which I love -- "every day the world is created" -- which is paired, in that prayerbook, with one of the morning blessings. It is one of my favorite things about that prayerbook, actually: their use of good poetry to highlight existing liturgical themes.

[bookblather]

The Summer Day is one of my favorite poems ever, and I really think I need to get my hands on a book of Oliver's poetry. She's just... affecting. Deeply.