Mary Oliver

It has the ability to share one's emotions and attiudes towards many subjects. From poverty to food, it lays buried within. Poetry is an inspiration to everyone. The people who write poetry, poets, share themselves through it. For instance, Mary Oliver. Mary Oliver is a smart an talented women with so much success to be proud of.

Mary Oliver was born September 10, 1935 in Maple Hieghts, Ohio, to Helen and Edward Oliver. She grew up in a pastoral enviorment. There, she developed a strong relationship with which is her most wrote about subject, the natural world. Mary was influenced by William Blake and Walt Whitham. She was also inluenced greatly by Edna St. Vincent Millay. So influenced that when she passed away, Mary wrote a letter to her sister requesting she visit Edna's home. Her influence can be read and felt throughout her poetry. Mary, like those who influenced her, is an influence to many others. Some even honor her.

Mary Oliver has been given countless awards for her work. Even with her first published piece, American Primitive, in 1983, scored her the Pulitzer Prize, which is awarded to honor work by american writers by the Colombia University's Graduate School of Journalism. She was awarded the Christopher Award and the PEN New England Award, given for a noticeable

accomplishment, for House of Light in 1990. In 1992 the National Book Foundation awarded her the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems. The first section of her book length poem, The Leaf and the Cloud, was selected for the inclusion in The Best American Poetry 1999. The second part, "Work," will be in The Best American Poetry 2000.

Her Honors include a Lannan Literary Award, offered by the Lannan Foundation for writer's who have made a huge contribution to lierature. The Poetry Society of America's Shelley Memorial Prize, given to a poet who is chosen on the basis of "genius and need."