The Out Spotlight

This is a new feature here at OMG that will focus on an out queer artist. This spotlight will focus on poet Mary Oliver. Oliver won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for her collection, American Primitive. She lived with Molly Malone Cook, her literary agent, for over 40 years until Malone's death in 2005. Most of Oliver's poems focus on the natural world, and she has been compared to both Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau. Here is a poem called "After Her Death" that Oliver wrote about the death of Molly Malone Cook-

After Her Death

I am trying to find the lesson

for tomorrow. Matthew something.

Which lectionary? I have not

forgotten the Way, but, a little,

the way to the Way. The trees keep whispering

peace, peace, and the birds

in the shallows are full of the

bodies of small fish and are

content. They open their wings

so easily, and fly. So. It is still

possible.

I open the book

which the strange, difficult, beautiful church

has given me. To Matthew. Anywhere.

From Thirst, Poems by Mary Oliver (2006)