Mary Oliver

At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all.

I would rather write poems than prose, any day, any place. Yet each has its own force.

I'd rather write about polar bears than people.

Wasn't it Emerson who said, 'My life is for itself and not for a spectacle'? I have a happy, full, good life because I hold it private.

Writers must... take care of the sensibility that houses the possibility of poems.

I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else.

My parents didn't care very much what I did, and that was probably a blessing.

People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work.

It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning - it'll be gone.

I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing.

My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work.

I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not giving readings.

I acknowledge my feeling and gratitude for life by praising the world and whoever made all these things.

I grew up in a confused house: too much unwanted attention or none at all.

Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious.

Poetry is meant to be heard.

I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished.

I learn a lot about my poems when I read them by the way people respond to them.

I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write.

I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.