American Primitive

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) was born in Maple Heights, Ohio, and became one of the most widely read American poets of her generation. Her work is grounded in close, contemplative attention to the natural world — birds, flowers, grasses, and the rhythms of the seasons — and asks persistent questions about how to live with meaning and awareness. Her collection American Primitive (Little, Brown, 1983) won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. New and Selected Poems (Beacon Press, 1992) won the National Book Award. Her other major collections include Why I Wake Early (2004) and Upstream (2016). She studied briefly at Ohio State University and Vassar College and was a longtime resident of Provincetown, Massachusetts.