Poetry for Students, Volume 31

Author Biography Mary Jane Oliver was born in Maple Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, on September 10, Her father was Edwar ...

accompanied by her own text calledOur Worldin Her 2008 volume of poems,Red Bird,was critically well received and continues her ...

Themes Humans and the Natural World In ‘‘The Black Snake,’’ Oliver explores the con- nections between the creatures of the natur ...

to the snake as a dead sibling. In this phrase, she implies that all creatures of the world are related to each other. That is, ...

of its death. By extension, Oliver seems to suggest, it is the irrational belief in everlasting life, in spite of overwhelming e ...

Historical Context Environmental Movement in the 1970s On April 22, 1970, Americans celebrated the first Earth Day, an event ins ...

families experienced birth defects, illnesses, and deaths, members of this community eventually had to be moved away from their ...

Moonsin 1979 andAmerican Primitivein 1983, Oliver established herself as a major force in American letters. Winning both a Pulit ...

itself. As Oliver notes in an article for theOhio Review, ‘‘Through the many possibilities of craft, the poem comes into its car ...

Another good example of an end-stopped line is the third line of stanza 3. In the first three lines of the stanza, the narrator ...

the period marking the poem’s end. Through her punctuation, line structure, caesuras, and enjamb- ments, Oliver structurally sup ...

when everything that has gone before will stand etched sharply before us. This memento mori is really a meditation on the presen ...

Such an awareness leads to a posture of respect, of humility before the natural world, a refusal to give in to the impulse to do ...

the necessary climate for engaging in the process of correspondence, or imaginative apprehension of nature as revelatory. Her tr ...

all day under the shifty wind, as in a dance to the great wedding, bend their bright bodies and tip their fragrance to the air, ...

verse. The message and craft of her poetry are valued by peers and critics alike despite her unfor- tunate neglect as potential ...

sensual pleasure in ‘‘Looking for Mushrooms,’’ the poetic persona perceives the hunt and capture of the delectable ‘‘salvo of th ...

critical importance of increased sensual percep- tion. For her, ‘‘joy / is a taste before / it’s anything else... ’’ and ‘‘the o ...

Poulin believes that the acceptance of the hard truths of mortal existence is epiphany for Oliver as well as for modern man hims ...

Keats, John, ‘‘Letter to John Taylor,’’ inEnglish Poetry and Prose of the Romantic Movement, edited by George Benjamin Woods, Sc ...