At Blackwater Pond, Mary Oliver
At Blackwater Pond, Mary Oliver
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At Blackwater Pond
Mary Oliver reads Mary Oliver

Author: Mary Oliver

Narrator: Mary Oliver

Unabridged: 1 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 04/01/2006


Synopsis

Mary Oliver has published twenty-one volumes of poetry and six books of prose in the span of five decades, but she rarely performs her poetry in live readings. With At Blackwater Pond, Mary Oliver gives her audience what they've longed to hear: the poet's voice reading her own work. In this audio, she has recorded forty of her favorite poems, spanning her career from Dream Work through New and Selected Poems, Volume Two.

"One of the astonishing aspects of Oliver's work is the consistency of tone over this long period. What changes is an increased focus on nature and an increased precision with language that has made her one of our very best poets."—Stephen Dobyns, New York Times Book Review

About The Author

A private person by nature, Mary Oliver (1935–2019) gave very few interviews over the years. Instead, she preferred to let her work speak for itself. And speak it has, for the past five decades, to countless readers. The New York Times recently acknowledged Mary Oliver as “far and away, this country’s best-selling poet.” Born in a small town in Ohio, Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28; No Voyage and Other Poems, originally printed in the UK by Dent Press, was reissued in the United States in 1965 by Houghton Mifflin. Oliver has since published twenty books of poetry and six books of prose. As a young woman, Oliver studied at Ohio State University and Vassar College, but took no degree. She lived for several years at the home of Edna St. Vincent Millay in upper New York state, companion to the poet’s sister Norma Millay. It was there, in the late ’50s, that she met photographer Molly Malone Cook. For more than forty years, Cook and Oliver made their home together, largely in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where they lived until Cook’s death in 2005. Over the course of her long and illustrious career, Oliver has received numerous awards. Her fourth book, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. She has also received the Shelley Memorial Award; a Guggenheim Fellowship; an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Achievement Award; the Christopher Award and the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award for House of Light; the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems; a Lannan Foundation Literary Award; and the New England Booksellers Association Award for Literary Excellence. Oliver’s essays have appeared in Best American Essays 1996, 1998, 2001; the Anchor Essay Annual 1998, as well as Orion, Onearth and other periodicals. Oliver was editor of Best American Essays 2009. Oliver’s books on the craft of poetry, A Poetry Handbook and Rules for the Dance, are used widely in writing programs. She is an acclaimed reader and has read in practically every state as well as other countries. She has led workshops at various colleges and universities, and held residencies at Case Western Reserve University, Bucknell University, University of Cincinnati, and Sweet Briar College. From 1995, for five years, she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College. She has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from The Art Institute of Boston (1998), Dartmouth College (2007) and Tufts University (2008).


Reviews

Goodreads review by Dave on January 18, 2019

RIP, Mary Oliver, alas. Deeply sad this morning at the news. Read Mary Oliver poetry today and this weekend. "In Blackwater Wood" concludes with three things we must learn how to do to live in this world: "to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when......more

Goodreads review by Katie on December 07, 2020

Nature poetry isn't always my thing, but I enjoyed these, especially the poems The Sun and Bone.......more

Goodreads review by Maggie on February 17, 2013

Mary Oliver: Poets are better than People I have lost count of how many times I have read Mary Oliver’s At Blackbwater Pond. Her voice transforms my mood to reflective feeling like watching mist rise over her New England Pond. I listen to her voice in the recording from Audible.com. Perhaps because......more

Goodreads review by Priyanka on October 06, 2020

When I wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety level shooting up, turning to the comfort of poems, especially Mary Oliver's, is the best self care technique I have been employing these days. I listen to her kind voice with my heart pounding and my eyes still closed tightly and I am transport......more

Goodreads review by Emily on December 24, 2023

You think you’re about to listen to a lovely poem about a heron or turtle or duck and then you’re crying at the inevitability of death but also how life is wild and wonderful and anyways - Mary reads this like you’re sitting next to her by the pond and you’re best friends and that is a world I’d lik......more