Famous American poet, Mary Oliver, was born on September 10, 1935, in Maple Heights, Ohio to her father, Edward William Oliver, and her mother, Helen M.V. Oliver. Edward was a social studies teacher and athletics coach in Cleveland public schools. He died when Mary was still a child. Because of this, many of her poems deal with her coping and healing over the effects of trauma. Helen Oliver stayed at home and raised Mary to have a strong connection with her environment. Mary fell in love with the natural world, and grew up to write many poems about nature. After graduating high school, Mary attended Ohio State University for one year, then transferred to Vassar College and left after a year. She did not receive a degree at either school. However, she pursued a career in writing. She spent most of her time working on poetry. She was greatly influenced by the poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and lived in her home for a short time, helping to organize her papers. During this time period, Mary met her partner Molly Malone Cook, and they moved to Massachusetts. The landscape there had a large effect on her writing because it was full of nature and beauty. Many of Mary’s life experiences influenced her writing. …show more content…
She won many awards, including the Shelley Memorial Award, an Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Lannan Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize for American Primitive, and the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems. Among some of her famous works are “The Journey”, “Sleeping in the Forest”, and “The Swan” - all of them including nature. In Oliver’s “Wild Geese”, the poet’s writing choices greatly affect the overall meaning to move on from past
Humankind has been facing and conquering problems, droughts, famines, and wars for instance, since the beginning of its existence. Throughout an individual’s life, obstacles arise and challenges present themselves in an attempt to inhibit the individual from moving forward. In her poem Crossing the Swamp, Mary Oliver utilizes a variety of techniques to expand on this idea, establishing a relationship between the speaker and the swamp as one of determination and realized appreciation.
Even having five sons to take care of and having a very powerful husband Mercy Otis Warren still found quiet time to read and even write some poetry herself. "For thou are more than life, and if our fate should set life and my love at strife, how could I then forget I love thee more than life.
Throughout Brooks’ life she received numerous of honors and awards. She was one great poet and her poems were well-known. Brooks carried a great influence and her legacy still lives in the life of many modern poets.
This essay will be looking at and examining the theme of characters having or going through a Journey, and how they are conveyed by author, Gwen Harwood, in her poems, ‘Suburban Sonnet: Boxing Day’ and ‘In the Park’. With the journeys in these two poems seemingly being written as reflections, where the characters are going through and struggling with the journeys they’re undertaking, I’ll be looking at what the journeys in these poems are representing and what they are showing readers about the characters who have had them.
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
Edna St. Vincent Millay grew up in a small town in Maine. She was always encouraged by her mother to pursue her writing and musical talents. She finished college and moved to New York City where she lived a fast pace life pursuing acting and play writing. Her liveliness, independence, and sexuality inspired her writing styles and gave her poetry a freshness that no others had. She is famous for writing sonnets like “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why.” This poem holds many metaphors and symbols pertaining to how certain seasons make people feel. She compares the feeling of nature with her personal feelings of being alone after having so many lovers.
Riley, Jeannette E. "Mary Oliver." Twentieth-Century American Nature Poets. Ed. J. Scott Bryson and Roger Thompson. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 342. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.
Anne Bradstreet: the first American to have her poems published. Throughout her works, she captured what it was like to be a pioneer in a new land. Thanks to her family’s high stature and disposition in life, Anne Bradstreet was given an education: something that was not very common for women in the 1600's. Her poems enable her to speak freely and express the world through a women's eye. In doing so she laid down the foundation to what it truly means to be American.
Oliver would write this poem because she did not conform to societies wishes. According to the Poetry Foundation, Oliver has never actually received a degree despite attending The Ohio State University and Vassar College. By not completing college, she had stepped out of the normal procedure of American life of growing up, going to college, then working. She also “met her long-time partner, Molly Malone Cook” while helping organize Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poetry. This choice is not a normal decision for people to make; however, she is still successful and has been presented many awards, including Honorary Doctorates (Beacon). Despite living the way she wants to, Oliver still manages to have success and happiness.
Lydia Marie Child was born on February 11, 1802 and died on October 20, 1880. During her life she wrote in many forms and on various topics, but Lydia was more than just a writer. She wrote short stories, biographies, science fiction, serialized fiction, children’s literature, historical novels and antislavery literature (Karcher 6). She was also a journalist and a feminist, and wrote about the American Revolution and Native Americans. She helped Harriot Jacobson escape slavery, encouraged reform and was an abolitionist. But, before she could help others, Lydia had to fight for her own right to advance and succeed. Lydia was born in Medford, Massachusetts, as the sixth and youngest child of Convers and Susannah Francis. Susannah died when Lydia was twelve, and she was sent to live with a married sister until the age of nineteen. Although Mr. Francis encouraged the intellectual advancement of his sons, he discouraged his daughter, Lydia, from her fondness for books (Myerson 5). Lydia continued to read and learn, without her father’s encouragement or help, an...
Anne Bradstreet is considered by many experts to be the first English-speaking/writing American poet. Although arguments can be made that Phyllis Wheatley is indebted that title, the complexity, breadth, depth and ingenuity found in Bradstreet’s poetry is of such magnitude that she ranks among the top five poets, male or female, in American history. However, as with most issues, there is contention on both sides. “The question of Anne Bradstreet’s value as a poet has often receded behind the more certain fact of her value as a pioneer. This means that, while generations of students have read Anne Bradstreet’s work on the basis that she was the first American poet, and a woman at that, many have emerged from the experience unconvinced of her poetry’s intrinsic worth” (Hall 1).
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was born in Rockland, Maine. Her parents, Cora Lounella, a nurse, and Henry Tolman Millay, a schoolteacher. (Blain, Grund, and Clements ) Known to her family as "Vincent," she was named after St. Vincent Hospital in New York City, where her uncle had received care. At the age of 8, her parents divorced, and her mother raised Millay and her younger sisters.("Edna St. Vincent Millay" ) After Millay’s mother and father got a divorce her mother raised her and her 2 other sisters on her own in the year 1899.(Academy of American Poets 1) Millay’s mother motivated her daughters to appreciate music and literature from an young age so that they would be ambitious and self-sufficient.(Academy of American Poets 1) Millay’s mother implored that Millay enter her poem "Renascence" into a contest as the outcome to her mother's advice she won fourth place and publication in The Lyric Year.(Academy of American Poets 1) This being the case she not long after received notice and a scholarship to Vassar. (Academy of American Poets 1) As can be seen her mother...
On March 26, 1955 Ellen Hopkins was born in Long Beach, California. She was adopted by an older couple, her father Albert was 72 and her mother Valerie, was 42 at the time. Always wanting to meet her birth parents, Ellen found her birth mother Toni Chandler in the year 2000. She herself had been writing poetry her entire life. She also found out she has a half sister named Fran, and a birth father who she has yet to meet. Ellen had a cheerful childhood growing up in neighborhood full of famous people such as Elvis Presley, Bob Hope, Kirk Douglas and Arnold Palmer. She won almost every creative writing contest she entered at Santa Ynez Valley Union High School which ...
In 1938 Gwendoyln Brooks got married to Henry Blakely and two years later they had their first child together,Henry Jr. and eleven years after that they had their daughter Nora. In 1945 she published her first book of poetry, A Street In Bronzeville. This poem gained her public appeal and she was named Mademoiselle magazine's "Ten Young Women of the Year." She went on to become a part of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She became the first African American to win a Pulitzer in when she was thirty three years old. She also received one of the highest honors given by the government for humanities, National Endowment for Humanities. She began to teach others about creative writing at Northeastern Illinois University, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, Clay College of New York, and the University of Wisconsin. 1967 marked a transition in her career when she got drawn into the Black Arts Movement. (Williams 2015). Gwendolyn Brooks’s work is known for it’s ability to encapsulate the everyday underclass black American. Her poems were often objective and she is usually written from the perspective of an observer. “She has taught audiences that poetry is not some formal activity closed to all but the most perceptive. Rather, it is an art form within the reach and understanding of everybody--including the lowliest among us” (Williams 2015). This something that Gwendoyln
Mary Cassatt once said, “There’s only one thing in life for a woman; it’s to be a mother…A woman artist must be…capable of making primary sacrifices.” Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born on May 22, 1844 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. Her father was a highly respected real estate and investment broker, and this resulted in her family’s high social class. Her schooling provided an opportunity for her to become a proper wife and mother. She took multiple classes in areas such as homemaking, embroidery and music. Even though women during her time were discouraged from pursuing a career, Mary Cassatt did not let that stop her (Mary Cassatt, para 1-2).