Mary Oliver: In Provincetown and Beyond

The moment I read "Wild Geese" on a friend's refrigerator, I was changed.

I wonder how old Mary Oliver (1935-2019) might be in this picture? Perhaps her early twenties? At this point she was already working at the Millay Colony of the Arts in Austerlitz, New York for Norma, sister to Edna St. Vincent Millay, the overseer of Steepltop. Steepletop is where Oliver first met her life partner Molly Malone Cook before they both eventually moved to Provincetown, and for awhile, ran a bookstore together.

This from her student and friend, the Eco-Theo poet Jason Myers:

“It was at Steepletop that Oliver began what she describes in Our World as a 40-year conversation with the photographer Molly Malone Cook. The keen and sympathetic eye one experiences looking at Cook’s photographs obviously had a nourishing and profound impact on Oliver’s life and work.

“M. instilled in me this deeper level of looking and working, of seeing through the heavenly visibles to the heavenly invisibles.” This is a fine paraphrase of the definition of faith from the Letter to the Hebrews. For many years Oliver and Cook ran a bookshop in Provincetown, and I imagine they both would have identified with Annie Dillard, who set her novel The Maytrees in Provincetown and describes herself as “a gregarious recluse.”

Today I’ve taken many of my Mary Oliver books down from the shelf. This one is Winter Hours. Here, I meet my younger self who has underlined and starred passages throughout the essays and poems.

This one received 5 inked stars from me 24 years ago, and today, too:

What is one to do with such moments, such memories, but cherish them? Who knows what is beyond the known? And if you think that any day the secret of light might come, would you not keep the house of your mind ready? Would you not cleanse your study of all that is cheap or trivial? Would you not live in continual hope, and pleasure, and excitement?

Mary Oliver, Winter Hours

In early summer I had the distinct pleasure of returning to Cape Cod to visit with a chilldhood friend, poet Jennifer Markell and together we signed up for a class with poet Elizabeth Bradfield, titled, “In Search of Wonderment,” at the Truro Center for the Arts.

Did the class make good on its claim? Yes, dear reader, and more. We found wonderment in the scrub pine, the butterbur, the coffin berries and in a 1,000 other discoveries. And while Mary Oliver is no longer taking her morning walks or working in the local bookstore, the sprit of that peninsula feels as vibrant as ever. A place I first encountered on summer vacations with my parents when we would rent a cottage for a week, a bit further in. But every year, my family would drive to Provincetown to explore the most beautiful beaches in the world. And yes, to get butter crunch and coffee chip ice cream. Another kind of wonderment for a seven-year-old.

The poem by Oliver that I love the most is “Wild Geese.” I’m including here a reading of it she gave shortly before her death. How many times had she read this poem before an audience who needed to hear it? How tired she must have become of audiences wanting to hear her poem of more than 25 years ago.

Had anyone released me from the pressure to be a good girl before?

What I did not know as I stood in front of my friend Beverly’s refrigerator, my first night in Eugene, OR, was that Edna St. Vincent had a poem titled “Wild Swans,” that seemed a close cousin to Oliver’s “Wild Geese.” Here it is in its entirety. I like to think that the two poems are speaking to each other; questioning the “tiresome heart,” both in their own way. These days, it’s very “in” to dismiss Oliver’s poems of snails and limpet cups, but I don’t agree. Both of these poets were considered rockstars of their day. Millay and Oliver regularly read to sold-out crowds across the nation.

These were poets who people desperately wanted to hear. I once talked with a woman about the popularity of Millay or “Vincent” as she was called. The woman said to me there was no contemporary poet we could compare her to. This was a conversation in the 1980’s at a summer party somewhere near Boston. “Think Madonna,” she said. When Mary Oliver came to Seattle in the mid 1990’s Town Hall was in overflow capacity with people outside and watching on closed circuit televisions. So maybe not Taylor Swift or Beyonce, but pretty close.

Imagine a world where poets were mega stars. But guess what? Poets don’t choose poetry for the money or the stardom. Perhaps poetry is more a form of accessing the unknown, or at least an inroad to the self. I have a sense that’s more what most of us are looking for.

Wild Swans

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!