http://www.cinchcast.com/amfresta/lap-7-project-/199835

http://www.cinchcast.com/amfresta/lap-7-project-/228253

http://www.cinchcast.com/amfresta/lap-7-project-/228267

http://www.cinchcast.com/amfresta/lap-7-project-/228271

http://www.cinchcast.com/amfresta/lap-7-project-/228257

http://www.cinchcast.com/amfresta/lap-7-project-/228259

http://www.cinchcast.com/amfresta/lap-7-project-/228263

Mary Oliver

Biography

Mary Oliver knew at an early age that she wanted to be a poet, and she had the stamina  to work at it, even in long periods without recognition, publication, or financial security. Later, she was equally adept at withstanding praise and awards without much interruption to her work a feat with which many other writers are not so successful with .

She was born September 10, 1935 in Maple Heights, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland, Mary is the daughter of Edward W. Oliver, a social studies teacher and athletic coach in the Cleveland public schools. She began writing poetry at age 13. Mary in the AWP Chronicle said . when she was only a little girl. what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other “world of the imagination” into which one could go, and stay.

Mary Oliver attended Ohio State University and Vassar College but didn’t earn a degree. She worked for a time as a secretary for the sister of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Millay’s influence is apparent in Oliver’s first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems (that was in 1963). These lyrical nature poems are set in a variety of locales, especially the Ohio of Oliver’s youth. Her childhood plays a more central role in The River Styx, Ohio, and Other Poems in 1972 which she attempted to re-create the past through memory and myth. The Night Traveler explores the themes of birth, decay, and death through the conceit of a journey into the underworld of classical mythology. In these poems Oliver’s fluent imagery weaves together the worlds of humans, animals, and plants.

Her volume on American Primitive , which won a Pulitzer Prize, glorifies the natural world, reflecting the American fascination with the ideal of the pastoral life as it was first expressed by Henry David Thoreau. In House of Light Mary explores the rewards of solitude in nature. New and Selected Poems ,which won a National Book Award, White Pine , Blue Pastures , and West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems are her later collections. She also wrote about the writing of poetry in two slender but rich volumes, A Poetry Handbook and Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse . Winter Hours includes poetry, prose poems, and essays on other poets. She is still alive till this day.

Awards and Honors

• 1969/70 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.
• 1980 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowshiph
• 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for American Primitive
• 1992 National Book Award for Poetry for New and Selected Poems
• 1998 Lannan Literary Award for poetry
• 1998 Honorary Doctorate from The Art Institute of Boston
• 2007 Honorary Doctorate Dartmouth College
• 2008 Honorary Doctorate Tufts University

Poetry collections

• 1963 No Voyage, and Other Poems (Dent (New York, NY), expanded edition, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1965.
• 1972 The River Styx, Ohio, and Other Poems Harcourt (New York, NY)
• 1978 The Night Traveler Bits Press
• 1978 Twelve Moons Little, Brown (Boston, MA),
• 1979 Sleeping in the Forest Ohio Review Chapbook
• 1983 American Primitive Little, Brown (Boston, MA)
• 1986 Dream Work (Atlantic Monthly Press (Boston, MA)
• 1987 Provincetown Appletree Alley, limited edition with woodcuts by Barnard Taylor
• 1990 House of Light (Beacon Press (Boston, MA)
• 1992 New and Selected Poems Beacon Press (Boston, MA),
• 1994 White Pine: Poems and Prose Poems Harcourt (San Diego, CA)
• 1995 Blue Pastures Harcourt (New York, NY)
• 1997 West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems’ ‘Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA)
• 1999 Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA)
• 2000 The Leaf and the Cloud Da Capo (Cambridge, MA), (prose poem)
• 2002 What Do We Know Da Capo (Cambridge, MA)
• 2003 Owls and Other Fantasies: poems and essays Beacon (Boston, MA)
• 2004 Why I Wake Early: New Poems Beacon (Boston, MA)
• 2004 Blue Iris: Poems and Essays Beacon (Boston, MA)
• 2005 New and Selected Poems, volume two Beacon (Boston, MA)
• 2005 At Blackwater Pond: Mary Oliver Reads Mary Oliver (audio cd)
• 2006 Thirst: Poems (Boston, MA)
• 2007 Our World with photographs by Molly Malone Cook, Beacon (Boston, MA)
• 2008 The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays
• 2008 Red Bird Beacon (Boston, MA)
• 2009 Evidence Beacon (Boston, MA)
• 2010 Swan: Poems and Prose Poems (Boston, MA)

Non-fiction books and other collections

• 1992 A Poetry Handbook Harcourt (San Diego, CA)
• 1998 Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA)
• 2004 Long Life: Essays and Other Writings Da Capo (Cambridge, MA)

Some of my favorite poems of Mary Oliver

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

The one who has flung herself out of the grass,

The one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down?

Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes?

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

Into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

How to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

Which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

By: Mary Oliver

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

Love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

Are moving across the landscapes,

Over the prairies and the deep trees,

The mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

Are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

The world offers itself to your imagination,

Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–

Over and over announcing your place

In the family of things.

Mindful by Mary Oliver

By Mary Oliver

Every day

I see or hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light.

It was what I was born for—

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world—

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

Nor am I talking

about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,

the very extravagant—

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these—

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean’s shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?

Bibliography

1. 1. www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Mary_Oliver/3127
   2. http://rinabeana.com/poemoftheday/index.php/category/mary-oliver/
   3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Oliver

A

My name is Ava.

Did you know Apples give you more energy then coffee.

Acorns are fun to throw at people.

My niece is Adorable.

You would never know that you have a different Adventure every day.

Fire Alert !

You wanna die or stay Alive.

Are you Amused.

Some times i can get really Angry.

I’m Annoyed as i write this.

Not having my phone is Annoying me.

I’m Anxious to get this done!

I Am Poem

I am open minded and loving

I wonder about my far future

I hear sweet sounds

I see love lost

I want to live a wonderful life

I am open minded and loving

I pretend to act like nothing is wrong

I feel broken hearted

I touch his hand

I worry about if he feels the same way

I cry when i cant handle the pain

I am open minded and colorful

I understand there is other fish in the sea

I say if you love something let it go

I dream about fairytale life

I try to be the best i can

I hope that he realizes he has had something special

I am open minded and loving

Acrostic Poem

No more child abuse!
On to the next one!
Time for a new year!

“Aunt Ava is the BEST!!”
Naaa naa Whats my name!
Yes Girls are the best!

My Niece Helped me with this!
Over the hill where the grass is greener!
Rosie is my nieces nick name!
Estate!(Means summer in Italian)

List Poem

Ive got credits to earn

gotta get on the bus and go

to school is where i learn

in school for about 8 hours

then on my way home,

I stop at the pizza shop

get me some food

from there i go home

at home i finish my homework

then i help my aunt with

any thing she needs me to do

finish my choirs

get washed

then my all dreams await me .

Asif Ali Zardari.

WHAT problems have recent monsoon rains caused in Pakistan?

Landslides in the north, raising water levels in already bloated rivers and further hindering the government’s aid efforts.

WHERE in the country have people been hard-hit by the rains and flooding?

Millions of people were affected in the monsoon.

WHEN was the last major natural disaster in Pakistan?

The earthquake in 2005.

WHY are aid workers having trouble reaching the affected areas?

They are using donkeys or traveling by foot to reach people.

HOW many people have been affected, and killed, in the current disaster in Pakistan?

The United Nations has said about six million people in Pakistan have been affected by the floods and at least 1,500 have died.