Keats, John, ‘‘Letter to John Taylor,’’ inEnglish Poetry
and Prose of the Romantic Movement, edited by George
Benjamin Woods, Scott, Foresman, 1916, p. 863.
Kitchen, Judith, Review ofNew and Selected Poems,by
Mary Oliver, inGeorgia Review, Vol. 47, No. 1, Spring
1993, pp. 145–59.
Long, Tom, Obituary of Molly Cook,Boston Globe,
August 30, 2005.
Manousos, Anthony, ‘‘Mary Oliver,’’ inDictionary of
Literary Biography, Vol. 5,American Poets since World
War II, First Series, edited by Donald J. Greiner, Gale
Research, 1980, pp. 112–14.
Oliver, Mary, ‘‘The Black Snake,’’ inNew and Selected
Poems, Beacon Press, 1992, p. 184.
———, ‘‘Some Thoughts on the Line,’’ inOhio Review,
Vol. 38, 1987, pp. 41–6.
Powers, Susan Marie, ‘‘Mary Oliver,’’ inDictionary of
Literary Biography, Vol. 193,American Poets since
World War II, Sixth Series, edited by Joseph Conte,
Gale Research, 1998, pp. 227–33.
Riley, Jeannette E., ‘‘Mary Oliver,’’ inDictionary of Lit-
erary Biography, Vol. 342,Twentieth-Century American
Nature Poets, edited by J. Scott Bryson and Roger
Thompson, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2008, pp. 270–80.
Rogoff, Jay, ‘‘Pushing and Pulling,’’ inSouthern Review,
Vol. 41, No. 1, Winter 2005, pp. 189–209.
Scheese, Don,Nature Writing: The Pastoral Impulse in
America, Routledge, 2002, p. 149.
VanSpanckeren, Kathryn, ‘‘Contemporary American
Poetry: A Rich Cornucopia with a Genuinely Popular
Base,’’ inOutline of American Literature, rev. ed., U.S.
Department of State, 2008, pp. 130–31.
Voros, Gyorgyi, Review ofNew and Selected Poemsand
White Pine, by Mary Oliver, inParnassus, Vol. 21, Nos.
1–2, 1996, pp. 231–50.
Wakoski, Diane, ‘‘Mary Oliver: Overview,’’ inContem-
porary Poets, 6th ed., edited by Thomas Riggs, St. James
Press, 1996.Further Reading
Bishop, Elizabeth,The Complete Poems, 1927–1979, Far-
rar Straus Giroux, 1984.
This book collects the work of a twentieth-cen-
tury poet to whom Oliver is often compared.
Bryson, J. Scott,Ecopoetry: A Critical Introduction, Uni-
versity of Utah Press, 2002.
Bryson provides an accessible introduction to
the field of ecopoetry, including essays on sev-
enteen important poets, ranging from Ralph
Waldo Emerson and W. B. Yeats to Mary
Oliver and Wendell Berry.
Cook, Molly Malone, and Mary Oliver,Our World, Bea-
con Press, 2007.
This is a beautiful book of photographs by
Cook accompanied by journal writings, essays,
and poems by Oliver, compiled and published
by Oliver after Cook’s death.
Oliver, Mary,Thirst, Beacon Press, 2007.
In this collection of poetry, Oliver expresses
themes of loss and grief through her encounters
with the natural world, written shortly after the
death of her close friend and partner Molly
Malone Cook.
Ratiner, Steven, ed.,Giving Their Word: Conversations
with Contemporary Poets, University of Massachusetts
Press, 2002.
Ratiner records interviews with thirteen of the
most important poets currently writing in Eng-
lish. In addition to Oliver, the book includes
interviews with Seamus Heaney, Donald Hall,
and William Stafford, among others.The Black Snake