Once declared “this country’s best-selling poet,” Mary Oliver made her name writing poetry that celebrated the natural world.
Mary Oliver was born and raised in rural Ohio, where her love of nature flourished as she spent long amounts of time outdoors in the woods. As a young adult, Oliver worked at poet Edna St. Vincent Millay’s estate, Steepletop, in Austerlitz, New York. There, she met her life partner, photographer Molly Malone Cook, and they were together for over 40 years until Cook’s death in 2005. The coupled live in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Oliver drew much inspiration from for her poetry. Oliver published more than 30 collections of poetry and essays in her life, and won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection American Primitive in 1984.
“Mary Oliver’s poems are for me, a balm in the storm,” said Oprah of Oliver’s work. “They speak the language of my soul and I think multiple souls around the earth.”
This timeline takes a closer look at Mary Oliver’s life and the major milestones in her career.
Mary Jane Oliver is born in Cleveland, Ohio, the second child of Edward
and Helen (née Vlasak) Oliver. Her older sister, from whom she is later
estranged, is named Joan.
September 10, 1935
Mary Oliver begins writing poetry at age 14. Celebrated American poet
Edna St. Vincent Millay dies in 1950 at the age of 58. Millay was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923.
ca. 1949-50
Oliver attends the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan, now known as Interlochen Arts Camp, where she was in the percussion
section of the National High School Orchestra.
Summer 1951
After graduating from high school, Mary writes to Norma Millay Ellis, sister of the celebrated late poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, asking if she
can visit the Millay home at Austerlitz, New York, known as Steepletop. Upon
visiting, she stays with Norma and her husband, Charles Ellis, on and off for six years, helping to organize Edna Millay’s papers and estate.
Spring-Summer 1953
Oliver attends both Vassar and The Ohio State University but does not earn a degree from either institution.
Mid 1950s
While still a student at Vassar, Mary pens a review of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Collected Poems, published by Harper Collins.
1956-1957
Mary Oliver moves to Greenwich Village in New York City.
Late 1950s
Oliver meets Greenwich Village-based photographer, Molly Malone Cook
while both are visiting Steepletop. Cook is ten years Mary’s senior. Also in 1959, poet Stanley Kunitz, who later becomes a lifelong friend, wins
the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
1959
Molly Malone Cook opens VII Gallery in Provincetown, exhibiting primarily fine art photography.
1960
Oliver’s poem “No Voyage” wins a $200 first prize from the Poetry Society of America.
1962
Mademoiselle, Harper’s Bazaar and The American Scholar are among the earliest magazines to accept poems from Oliver for publication.
Early 1963
While living and working in London, England, Mary Oliver’s first collection of poems, No Voyage and Other Poems, is published when she is 28. She writes to and begins a long friendship with Ohio-born American poet,
James Wright.
1963
Oliver and Molly Cook decide to spend the summer together in
Provincetown, Massachusetts. They will live there for most of the next 40 years.
1964
Cook’s VII Gallery closes and transitions into East End Books where a young, as-of-yet unknown filmmaker, John Waters, works in the late 1960s.
1964-1965
The American edition of No Voyage is published in the U.S. by Houghton
Mifflin. It is reviewed in The New York Times by James Dickey and called
“predictably good.”
1965
Oliver wins the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of
America. Poet Adrienne Rich wins it the following year.
1969-1970
The River Styx, Ohio, and Other Poems is published by Harcourt.
1972
Molly Cook works as an assistant to writer Norman Mailer, then a parttime resident of Provincetown. Mary Oliver works as a typist for Mailer,
including on the manuscript for The Executioner’s Song, published in 1979.
Mid 1970s
Oliver’s father dies from pulmonary emphysema.
April 1975
Bits Press publishes The Night Traveler, a small chapbook, which is
reviewed in The New Republic by Joyce Carol Oates.
1978
Twelve Moons is published by Little, Brown. Oliver receives the Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature.
1979
Mary Oliver is awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Fellowship.
1980
American Primitive is published by Little, Brown and dedicated to the poet James Wright. Oliver serves as the Flora Stone Mather Visiting
Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
1983
American Primitive wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
1984
Oliver’s mother Helen Vlasak Oliver dies from heart failure.
December1985
Oliver is the Poet in Residence at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.
1985-1986
Dream Work, containing two of Oliver’s most well-known and beloved
poems, “Wild Geese” and “The Journey,” is published by The Atlantic Monthly Press.
1986
As the juror for the Morse Poetry Prize at Northeastern University, Mary
Oliver selects The Holyoke by (unknown to her, Provincetown native) Frank X. Gaspar.
1988
House of Light is published by Beacon Press.
1990
Mary Oliver is the Margaret Banister Writer in Residence at Sweet Briar College in Virginia.
1991
New and Selected Poems is published by Beacon Press. It later wins the National Book Award for Poetry.
1992
A Poetry Handbook, a practical guide for the reading and writing of
poetry, is published by Harcourt.
1994
Blue Pastures is published by Harcourt.
1995
Mary Oliver serves as the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for
Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College in Vermont. At Bennington, she meets her future literary executor, Bill Reichblum and his wife Amalie, becoming close with the family, including their two children.
1996-2001
Oliver receives the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry Oliver, and the first of several Honorary Doctorates, from the Art Institute of Boston.
1998
Oliver publishes Winter Hours, described as “her most personal book
yet.” As a juror she selects David Keplinger to receive the T.S. Eliot Prize
for his first collection, The Rose Inside. Keplinger will remain a friend and correspondent until the end of Mary’s life.
1999
The Leaf and the Cloud, a prose poem, is published by Da Capo.
2000
Owls and Other Fantasies: poems and essays is published by Beacon Press.
2003
Long Life: Essays and Other Writings is published by Da Capo; Why I
Wake Early: New Poems and Blue Iris: Poems and Essays are published by Beacon Press.
2004
Molly Malone Cook dies at the age of 80 after a long illness. New and Selected Poems, Volume 2 is published by Beacon Press.
August 2005
Friend and poet Stanley Kunitz dies at age 100. Mary publishes Thirst, which features poems that grapple with grief, faith, and spirituality.
2006
Our World, a book commemorating Molly Malone Cook’s life and photography with text by Mary Oliver, is published by Beacon Press.
2007
Mary Oliver is described by Dwight Garner in The New York Times as “far
and away, this country’s best-selling poet.”
February 2007
The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays and Red Bird are published by Beacon Press.
2008
Mary Oliver donates the papers and photographs of Molly Malone Cook to Smith College Special Collections.
2008-2010
Evidence is published by Beacon Press; this is the first of Mary’s books to
be dedicated to her late-in-life partner Anne.
2009
Swan: Poems and Prose Poems is published, containing the poem, “Don’t
Hesitate,” with the beloved line, “Joy is not made to be a crumb.” Mary leaves Provincetown for Hobe Sound, Florida where she lives with Anne until the end of her life.
2010
Mary Oliver attends First Lady of California Maria Shriver’s Women’s Conference. She is inspired by hearing V [formerly Eve Ensler] publicly
share her story of surviving of childhood sexual abuse.
October 2010
Maria Shriver interviews Mary for the April 2011 O Magazine‘s special edition on poetry. Mary discloses for the first time publicly that she is a
survivor of childhood sexual abuse.
2011
Mary Oliver is diagnosed with lung cancer, an experience reflected in her
poem, “The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac.”
2012
Dog Songs is published by Penguin.
2013
Oliver grants a rare, in-depth audio interview to Krista Tippet for “On
Being.”
2015
Upstream: Selected Essays is published by Penguin. Oliver meets writer Lindsay Whalen and agrees to let Whalen pen her biography.
2016
Her final book, Devotions: The Collected Poems of Mary Oliver, is
published by Penguin.
2017
Ruth Franklin’s essay, “What Mary Oliver’s Critics Don’t Understand” appears in The New Yorker.
November 2017
Mary Oliver dies of lymphoma at her home in Florida at the age of 83.
January 17, 2019
A Tribute to Mary Oliver is held at The 92nd St Y in New York and features readings by Maria Shriver, John Waters, poet Coleman Barks, V [Eve Ensler] and more.
September 2019
The papers of Mary Oliver, spanning 1863-2019, are given to the Library of Congress by Bill and Amalie Reichblum.
2023
