Mary Oliver passed away yesterday. Today for our weekly Burn Pile, CutBank would like to remember her and the gift of her poetry.
Over at LitHub, Brandon Taylor writes how Oliver’s work made him “feel worthy of being in the world.” Emily Popek also reflects on her time as Oliver’s student at Electric Literature. Similarly, Summer Brennan looks back at the lessons she learned from Oliver. For The New Yorker, Stephanie Burt remembers Oliver and her books “of secular psalms, inquiries into nature, and reasons to go on living.”
In the wake of this loss, those of us at CutBank could get mired in grief and sorrow. It would be easy, here in cold and snowy Missoula, MT. But today, cruising through Poetry Foundation’s website, we can read their Poem of the Day: “White-Eyes” by Mary Oliver. We can read that poem and all the rest. We can read and remember. And be thankful for Mary Oliver.
May you all be “married to amazement.”