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I send this poem to my
children the first day

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-of summer every year.
-“The Summer Day.”

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I don't know if I can read this.

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It's not gonna get better
later. “The Summer Day.

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Who made the world?"

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[Mary] “Roses Late Summer.”

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"What happens to the leaves
after they turn red and golden

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and fall away?

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What happens to the singing
birds when they can't

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sing any longer?

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What happens
to their quick wings?

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Do you think there is any
personal heaven for any of us?

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Do you think anyone
the other side of

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that darkness will call to us,
meaning us?"

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[♪]

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“Maybe.” Sweet Jesus talking his

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melancholy madness
stood up in the boat

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and the sea lay down,
silky and sorry.

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So everybody was
saved that night.

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But you know how it is
when something different

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crosses the threshold.

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The uncle's mutter together,
the women walk away,

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The young brother begins
to sharpen his knife.

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Nobody knows what the soul is."

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"Beyond the trees

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the foxes keep teaching their
children to live in the valley.

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So they never seem to vanish,

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they are always there
in the blossom of light

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that stands up every
morning in the dark sky."

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[John] She was a brilliant
poet from beatnik years.

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I think she was
always a beatnik.

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Mary Oliver's poems are

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for me, a balm in the storm.

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They speak the language
of my soul

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and I think multiple
souls around the earth.

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[loud applause]

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[woman] I wouldn't mind being a
rose in a field full of roses.

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Fear has not yet occurred
to them, nor ambition.

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Reason they have not
yet thought of. Neither

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do they ask how long they
must be roses, and then what.

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Or any other foolish question.

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She was our most famous
poet for a long time.

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Very famous and yet
completely elusive.

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I think of her

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as a mystic.

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She's radical.

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[interviewer] What do you think
you have

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done with your one
wild and precious life?

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What I have done
is learn to love

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and learn to be loved and
that didn't come easy.

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[Mary] Ohio where I grew up
was important to me.

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It being the initial place

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where I learned to love the
earth.

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The two things I loved from
a very early age were the

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natural world and dead poets.

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[♪]

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I was a kind of solitary kid

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and dead poets were my friends.

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[Mary] I have a kind
of joke answer to

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“Who do I read?” But I
mean it. I read Whitman

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and Whitman

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and Whitman.

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[man] Walt Whitman created
this new voice

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that was riding on the
waves of American speech.

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Mary Oliver was one of
the first poets that pointed

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to Whitman as an
important influence.

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The tumbling down the page

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of those long lush sentences
became part of her education.

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[Mary] I started writing
probably when I was about 13.

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I saw some poems I liked and

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and I was trying to imitate
them.

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You don't think at 13
about career

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or profession
or stuff like that,

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I just started doing it.

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It was shocking.
I was in girl in Ohio

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and I wanted to write poems?

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Unheard of.
Even boys didn't do that.

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Just to be a poet in America
is already queer enough.

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It's hard to grow up
feeling invisible, feeling

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that you don't fit in
the culture around you

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and come out of that with
a strong sense of self.

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[Mary] I felt different. I went
to school because I had to.

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The only record I broke
in high school was truancy.

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[interviewer] When you say
you felt different,

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how did different feel to you?

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[Mary] Not belonging.

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I had two or three very good
friends during that time,

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but I was always trying to
get them to go to the woods.

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I very much wished not to be
noticed and to be left alone.

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[haunting piano, distant wolf
howls]

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[Ariana] The world is a cruel
and violent place.

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It's in country songs,
it's in ancient songs.

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A poem is a wayfaring stranger

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and it's moving
through a world of woe.

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[Mary] My mother was the blue
wisteria,

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my mother was the mossy
stream out behind the house,

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my mother, alas, alas, did
not always love her life,

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heavier than iron it was

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as she carried it in her arms
from room to room,

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oh, unforgettable!

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I bury her in a box in the
earth

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and turn away.

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[Mary] It was a very dark and
broken house that I came from.

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I escaped it barely.

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That was my strength, but
I wasn't all strength.

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My father was
a demon of frustrated

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dreams, was a breaker of
trust, was a poor thin boy

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with bad luck. He followed God,

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there being no one else
he could talk to;

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he swaggered before God,

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there being no one else
who would listen.

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Listen, this was his life.
I bury it in the earth.

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I sweep the closets.
I leave the house.

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[David] When she was 17,
she left that house

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and she hid out
in the woods for a week.

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[Mary] I mention them now, I
will not mention them again.

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It is not lack of love
nor lack of sorrow.

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But the iron thing they
carried, I will not carry.

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I give them
one, two, three, four

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the kiss of courtesy, of
sweet thanks, of anger,

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of good luck in the deep earth.

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May they sleep well.
May they soften.

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But I will not give them
the kiss of complicity.

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I will not give them the
responsibility for my life.

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You know, forget it.
Set it down, walk on.

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It's an amazing poem.

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You think that's being written
at a time in the culture when

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there was so much
emphasis on investigating

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childhood abuse,
on the kinds of traumas

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that might have shaped us,
and Mary is saying,

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“You don't need it.

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Bury them and leave.”

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[car starting, travel music]

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[woman] When Mary Oliver was
beginning, there weren't

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that many paradigms for

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what a woman poet
was supposed to be like.

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[woman] Edna St. Vincent Millay
moved

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to this small village
in upstate New York

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after her celebrated youth
in Greenwich Village.

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It was on the 700 acre
estate called Steepletop

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that she wrote the main
body of her work

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and it was here too,
that she died.

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Now living at Steepletop
is Millay’s younger sister

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Norma Millay Ellis.

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In her senior year of
high school, she wrote

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to Norma Millay to ask if she
might come to Steepletop

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and she left the day after she
graduated from high school.

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[woman] One visitor came to
Steepletop for an afternoon

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and stayed four years as
Norma's secretary. She spent

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some time living at Edna
St. Vincent Millay’s house

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with Millay’s sister,
helping her to catalog

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and organize Millay’s papers.

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[Donika] There's an idea of Edna
St.

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Vincent Millay being in the past

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and then there's the real Edna

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St. Vincent Millay,
known best as “Vincent.”

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[woman] She was the scandalous

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and celebrated young
woman who was liberated

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and flouting
all kinds of conventions.

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Between Edna St.

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Vincent Millay and Anne
Sexton and Sylvia Plath.

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There's this aura of
problematic sexuality

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and living on the edge

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and that that's where
feminine genius was

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supposed to reside.

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Like it was supposed to be
risking itself in every sense

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risking shame, social death,

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actual death, insanity.

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[Donika] Millay was hailed as a
kind of wunderkind early on

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and then less so later.

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[man] Miss Millay is an artist
of considerable
accomplishments.

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She is also a woman.

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She therefore fascinates
the male reviewer

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but at the same time
horrifies him too.

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[woman] Mary attended college
for two years,

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one year at Ohio State,
one year at Vassar

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and when she left Vassar,
she once again was

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between Ohio

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and Steepletop until in 1959

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she moved to Greenwich Village.

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[jazz music]

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She enjoyed being part of
the culture in that moment.

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Many of her Vassar classmates
were in the village.

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It was a very alive time,

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but I do think it was deeply
uncomfortable for her to be

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that removed from
the natural world.

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[woman] Mary Oliver moved
to New York City

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but continued
visiting Steepletop.

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One day when she was visiting,
Molly Malone Cook also was

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there and Mary described
falling

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head-over-heels
in love with her.

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If you suddenly and
unexpectedly feel joy,

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don't hesitate. Give into it.

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There are plenty of lives

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and whole towns
destroyed or about to be.

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We are not wise,
and not very often kind.

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And much can never be redeemed.

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Still, life has
some possibility left.

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[woman] Molly was 10 years
Mary's senior, just this
charismatic,

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stylish, sophisticated person.

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She just appeared in her life.

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[♪]

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Perhaps this is its way
of fighting back,

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that sometimes something
happens better than all the
riches

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00:12:51,218 --> 00:12:52,875
or power in the world.

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It could be anything,

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00:12:54,359 --> 00:12:58,743
but very likely you notice it
in the instant when love begins.

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Anyway, that's often the case.

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00:13:01,608 --> 00:13:05,163
Anyway, whatever it is, don't
be afraid of its plenty.

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Joy is not made to be a crumb.

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[Mary] M had will and wit

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and probably too much
empathy for others.

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She was quick in speech

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00:13:21,490 --> 00:13:24,769
and she did not suffer
fools. When you knew her,

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00:13:24,873 --> 00:13:27,358
she was unconditionally kind.

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00:13:27,461 --> 00:13:30,671
But also, you had to be
brave to get to know her.

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00:13:31,155 --> 00:13:33,329
[woman] Molly had been a
staff photographer

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00:13:33,433 --> 00:13:35,815
for the Village Voice
at its inception

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00:13:35,918 --> 00:13:37,506
and she was still living
in the Village

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00:13:37,609 --> 00:13:40,474
and really taking
photographs quite seriously.

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[Mary] When M was a small
child, someone asked her

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what she wanted to do
when she grew up

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00:13:45,721 --> 00:13:49,414
and she answered, I want to
see every face in America.

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She was born in 1925
in San Francisco.

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00:13:53,315 --> 00:13:54,695
It was not the most fortunate

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00:13:54,799 --> 00:13:57,353
beginning, years later
she searched for

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00:13:57,457 --> 00:13:59,286
and found her parents.

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But for many years she was
moved

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00:14:01,357 --> 00:14:05,292
through various temporary
homes, a childhood of mystery

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00:14:05,396 --> 00:14:07,087
and insufficiency.

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00:14:07,743 --> 00:14:11,920
It is not hard to guess the
reason she wanted to see faces,

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00:14:12,023 --> 00:14:13,887
to find someone, somewhere

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00:14:13,991 --> 00:14:18,202
who would be recognizable,
would look like her.

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00:14:18,823 --> 00:14:20,652
Molly was a very
strong character,

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00:14:20,756 --> 00:14:24,208
so Molly gave her the
belief that she was a great,

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00:14:24,311 --> 00:14:26,900
great talent, and was
gonna succeed and everything

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00:14:27,004 --> 00:14:28,488
and stick with me baby.

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00:14:30,007 --> 00:14:32,699
[Mary] Her world certainly
wasn't daisies or birds

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00:14:32,802 --> 00:14:34,943
or trees as mine was.

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00:14:35,046 --> 00:14:37,462
We each had our
separate natures.

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00:14:37,566 --> 00:14:40,258
Watching M when she
was taking photographs

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00:14:40,362 --> 00:14:42,605
and no less watching
the intensity

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00:14:42,709 --> 00:14:45,160
and openness with which
she dealt with friends

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00:14:45,263 --> 00:14:49,405
and strangers too, taught me
what real attention is about.

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00:14:49,509 --> 00:14:51,235
Attention without feeling,

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00:14:51,338 --> 00:14:55,584
I began to learn,
is only a report.

249
00:14:56,826 --> 00:14:58,276
I was in my late twenties

250
00:14:58,380 --> 00:15:00,900
and well filled with a
sense of my own thoughts,

251
00:15:01,003 --> 00:15:02,418
my own presence.

252
00:15:03,143 --> 00:15:05,870
I was eager to address
the world of words,

253
00:15:05,974 --> 00:15:07,976
to address the world with
words.

254
00:15:11,048 --> 00:15:13,015
[gentle piano, seagulls]

255
00:15:16,225 --> 00:15:18,020
[man] Provincetown is probably
the most beautiful

256
00:15:18,124 --> 00:15:19,332
small town in America.

257
00:15:20,022 --> 00:15:22,922
A wonderful cluster of
white clapboard houses

258
00:15:23,025 --> 00:15:25,648
with shingled roofs
next to the harbor.

259
00:15:27,685 --> 00:15:32,138
Provincetown is at the
literal end of the country

260
00:15:32,241 --> 00:15:36,211
where the light is so gorgeous
when you get in the harbor.

261
00:15:37,591 --> 00:15:40,940
No wonder so many people
come here and find a new life.

262
00:15:42,976 --> 00:15:46,221
[reporter] Cape Cod hippies
conduct a “paint-in” at the
famous

263
00:15:46,324 --> 00:15:47,877
Provincetown art colony.

264
00:15:51,398 --> 00:15:53,262
It was a place that
could absorb anyone

265
00:15:53,366 --> 00:15:54,815
who couldn't fit in
anywhere else.

266
00:15:54,919 --> 00:15:58,440
You know, it was like a place
for outcasts and misfits.

267
00:15:58,819 --> 00:16:02,271
I came to Provincetown with
a book of poems in one pocket

268
00:16:02,375 --> 00:16:03,859
and a bottle of wine
in the other.

269
00:16:05,136 --> 00:16:08,933
It was a healthy environment
for the creative soul.

270
00:16:09,899 --> 00:16:12,799
The bars were full
of writers and artists.

271
00:16:14,870 --> 00:16:17,597
There was a lot of
drugs and alcohol

272
00:16:17,700 --> 00:16:21,325
and promiscuity,
which was fine with me.

273
00:16:24,673 --> 00:16:28,988
[man] It has been an artist
colony for 150 years.

274
00:16:29,091 --> 00:16:30,299
That came about because

275
00:16:30,403 --> 00:16:33,509
the Portuguese community,
the fishing community

276
00:16:33,613 --> 00:16:36,098
that had settled there, had a
very welcoming kind of culture.

277
00:16:36,202 --> 00:16:38,963
They were happy to rent
rooms, to take people in

278
00:16:39,067 --> 00:16:41,241
and they really weren't
too concerned about their

279
00:16:41,345 --> 00:16:43,071
sexual orientation.

280
00:16:44,037 --> 00:16:45,763
[Frank] Our Provincetown
was pretty much a

281
00:16:45,866 --> 00:16:47,765
Portuguese neighborhood.

282
00:16:48,455 --> 00:16:50,043
We had Portuguese
superstitions.

283
00:16:50,147 --> 00:16:52,632
My mother couldn't sweep
the floors if it was dark

284
00:16:52,735 --> 00:16:54,358
because it would
bring the dead up.

285
00:16:55,290 --> 00:16:57,464
We still heated with coal.

286
00:16:57,568 --> 00:16:59,984
We cooked on a kerosene stove,

287
00:17:00,088 --> 00:17:04,126
but we had roomers in our house

288
00:17:04,230 --> 00:17:07,302
and these people were
from another world.

289
00:17:07,405 --> 00:17:10,408
And they were colorful
and they knew things.

290
00:17:10,650 --> 00:17:13,204
There was something
magical about it.

291
00:17:15,482 --> 00:17:17,933
I hitchhiked to
Provincetown, this long ago

292
00:17:18,037 --> 00:17:21,661
I had a girlfriend. And we
hitchhiked to Provincetown

293
00:17:21,764 --> 00:17:23,042
because somebody said, “It’s a

294
00:17:23,145 --> 00:17:24,905
weird place, you'll like it.”

295
00:17:25,009 --> 00:17:26,286
It was, I did.

296
00:17:31,395 --> 00:17:33,949
[woman] In June of ’64 with
Molly,

297
00:17:34,053 --> 00:17:36,434
she went to Provincetown
for the summer

298
00:17:36,538 --> 00:17:39,230
and they just didn't leave.

299
00:17:41,370 --> 00:17:44,787
[C. Steven] Do you know how many
people I know who came here

300
00:17:44,891 --> 00:17:49,827
for the summer, or for a visit
and are here 50 years later?

301
00:17:53,451 --> 00:17:55,488
[♪]

302
00:17:55,591 --> 00:17:58,629
[woman reading as Mary]
Previously M had gone back to
New York for the winter,

303
00:17:58,732 --> 00:18:01,942
but that long fall we kept
lingering, feeling our roots

304
00:18:02,046 --> 00:18:05,084
settling into that magical
and beautiful town.

305
00:18:06,499 --> 00:18:08,949
M was taking and printing
her own photographs.

306
00:18:09,053 --> 00:18:12,988
I was writing poems at the
kitchen table and we were
young.

307
00:18:15,887 --> 00:18:17,889
[♪]

308
00:18:20,099 --> 00:18:23,723
Molly had one of the first
photo art galleries ever.

309
00:18:25,242 --> 00:18:28,590
[woman] It's really this
electric moment in photography.

310
00:18:30,005 --> 00:18:32,559
When you look at
the roster of people

311
00:18:32,663 --> 00:18:35,976
that she was showing,
they're just titans.

312
00:18:37,702 --> 00:18:40,429
This was really at the very
beginnings of photography

313
00:18:40,533 --> 00:18:44,157
as fine art and there
just was not the market.

314
00:18:44,261 --> 00:18:46,642
Eventually the gallery
became a bookstore

315
00:18:46,746 --> 00:18:48,334
and someone who comes

316
00:18:48,437 --> 00:18:51,095
through the bookstore in
those days is John Waters.

317
00:18:51,199 --> 00:18:52,683
[John] It was called East End
Books

318
00:18:52,786 --> 00:18:55,030
and I nagged them every
day if I could work there

319
00:18:55,134 --> 00:18:57,239
and I had long hair and looked
freakish and everything

320
00:18:57,343 --> 00:19:00,587
but Molly liked me and she said
“When it rains you can work.”

321
00:19:00,691 --> 00:19:01,692
Because that's when
it got crowded.

322
00:19:01,830 --> 00:19:05,558
So wherever I was, I'd have
to run in when it rained

323
00:19:05,661 --> 00:19:08,975
and work there. Mary then,
well she'd be in the back in a

324
00:19:09,078 --> 00:19:11,598
pea coat in the
middle of summer.

325
00:19:12,358 --> 00:19:14,187
I mean, I think she was
going through a lot

326
00:19:14,291 --> 00:19:15,913
of adjustment there.

327
00:19:19,468 --> 00:19:21,436
[♪]

328
00:19:24,197 --> 00:19:28,028
[woman] Ohio and Steepletop had
a similar landscape. Streams

329
00:19:28,132 --> 00:19:32,205
and meadows and forest that
she was very familiar with

330
00:19:32,309 --> 00:19:33,586
and so to come

331
00:19:33,689 --> 00:19:36,623
to Provincetown it was
like going to the moon.

332
00:19:37,072 --> 00:19:40,420
She had never seen
anything like that before.

333
00:19:44,424 --> 00:19:46,633
[Gabrielle] You could go not
very far

334
00:19:46,737 --> 00:19:51,120
and be in the Beech Forest,
and like not see a soul.

335
00:19:53,847 --> 00:19:55,884
[♪]

336
00:19:56,436 --> 00:19:59,853
[woman] The period from
1964 until 1979,

337
00:19:59,957 --> 00:20:03,167
Mary left Provincetown rarely.

338
00:20:03,271 --> 00:20:05,342
And what she was doing
was just working

339
00:20:05,445 --> 00:20:08,793
and getting to know this
place that was her home.

340
00:20:13,798 --> 00:20:16,767
[Mary] I call it primary
sources.

341
00:20:16,870 --> 00:20:21,220
Some people go to the library,
but I went to the woods.

342
00:20:22,945 --> 00:20:24,809
She went into the
woods with her questions,

343
00:20:24,913 --> 00:20:27,536
which is exactly what
the great proponents

344
00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:30,781
of her tradition in American
poetry encouraged her to do.

345
00:20:30,884 --> 00:20:34,267
Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, say,
“You don't need a spiritual

346
00:20:34,371 --> 00:20:37,995
teacher, you need to go out
into the world and look.”

347
00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:41,136
[Mary] I drive people crazy
because I could sit for two
hours

348
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:42,931
and look at the clouds
and be very silent

349
00:20:43,034 --> 00:20:45,313
and I'm having a nice time

350
00:20:45,416 --> 00:20:47,936
and sometimes I'm with
people who say,

351
00:20:48,039 --> 00:20:50,076
“This is kind of nuts.”

352
00:20:50,179 --> 00:20:53,528
[John] I would say to Mary, “I
know you’re
crawling around the woods

353
00:20:53,631 --> 00:20:56,289
talking to animals. They're
gonna put you in a mental

354
00:20:56,393 --> 00:20:59,361
institution.” And then she got
bit once by a badger.

355
00:20:59,465 --> 00:21:00,604
I said, “That's what you get.”

356
00:21:00,707 --> 00:21:02,019
She was down there, you know,

357
00:21:02,122 --> 00:21:04,987
helping him build the
dam. Get out of there!

358
00:21:06,506 --> 00:21:08,819
[C. Steven] I walked Beech
Forest with Mary one time.

359
00:21:08,922 --> 00:21:10,924
And I had to respect not to
talk

360
00:21:11,028 --> 00:21:13,341
and she was just looking,
looking, looking.

361
00:21:16,827 --> 00:21:21,866
[Mary] My own nature is to like
to walk the same path every day

362
00:21:22,246 --> 00:21:25,042
to see what I missed
the day before.

363
00:21:28,114 --> 00:21:32,774
[David] There's a poem called
“The Clam,” which is about

364
00:21:32,877 --> 00:21:37,848
how a clam is like us and
how we are like a clam.

365
00:21:37,986 --> 00:21:41,058
She takes this clamminess

366
00:21:41,161 --> 00:21:42,404
and she finds all

367
00:21:42,508 --> 00:21:46,650
of the common denominators
without ever imposing human

368
00:21:46,753 --> 00:21:50,136
assumptions on what a
clam must be experiencing

369
00:21:50,239 --> 00:21:52,794
and all she does is look at
the things that a clam has

370
00:21:52,897 --> 00:21:54,140
that I also have.

371
00:21:54,243 --> 00:21:59,041
It breathes, it has a
stomach like me, it has this,

372
00:21:59,145 --> 00:22:02,562
it has that, and then at the
end she just backs her way

373
00:22:02,666 --> 00:22:04,288
into the cathedral.

374
00:22:05,116 --> 00:22:09,500
It tries very hard not to
die. It just opens me up.

375
00:22:09,604 --> 00:22:11,364
And how do you
do that with words?

376
00:22:11,468 --> 00:22:15,679
Because what words do,
by nature, is name things

377
00:22:15,782 --> 00:22:18,889
and close them off.
And yet she does it.

378
00:22:18,992 --> 00:22:21,754
Before I know it,
I'm suddenly a clam.

379
00:22:24,688 --> 00:22:26,690
[♪]

380
00:22:27,104 --> 00:22:30,383
[Mary] If you love something you
give it a lot of attention

381
00:22:30,487 --> 00:22:32,765
and if you give something
a lot of attention,

382
00:22:32,868 --> 00:22:34,663
you very often learn to love it

383
00:22:35,250 --> 00:22:38,702
and that spiritual
investigation requires

384
00:22:38,805 --> 00:22:40,704
that you pay attention
to the world

385
00:22:40,807 --> 00:22:42,878
and paying attention
to the world

386
00:22:42,982 --> 00:22:44,708
often leads you to
love the world.

387
00:22:49,989 --> 00:22:52,371
Years ago, a reviewer

388
00:22:52,474 --> 00:22:55,270
surmised that I must have
a private income

389
00:22:55,374 --> 00:22:57,272
of some substance

390
00:22:57,376 --> 00:22:59,585
since all I ever seemed to do

391
00:22:59,688 --> 00:23:02,553
was walk around
the woods and dunes

392
00:23:02,657 --> 00:23:04,969
and the long beaches of my
town.

393
00:23:05,073 --> 00:23:07,593
It was a silly surmise.

394
00:23:08,697 --> 00:23:09,905
Looking at the world,

395
00:23:10,009 --> 00:23:12,874
whatever shape my
finances were in,

396
00:23:12,977 --> 00:23:15,808
was the important
part of my life.

397
00:23:16,153 --> 00:23:19,190
Indeed, I had almost
no income at all.

398
00:23:19,570 --> 00:23:22,021
Poets, if they ever
make a living

399
00:23:22,124 --> 00:23:23,505
from their writing,

400
00:23:23,609 --> 00:23:25,507
do not do so when they are

401
00:23:25,611 --> 00:23:27,475
first beginning to publish.

402
00:23:27,578 --> 00:23:29,062
In the money economy,

403
00:23:29,166 --> 00:23:30,581
I had none.

404
00:23:30,685 --> 00:23:33,170
Nor did my partner, and every

405
00:23:33,273 --> 00:23:35,759
evening there was supper

406
00:23:35,862 --> 00:23:37,519
to think about.

407
00:23:37,623 --> 00:23:42,351
-She had no money, like, none.
-Having to steal an egg

408
00:23:42,455 --> 00:23:47,322
out of a nest of eggs in
order to feed yourself.

409
00:23:48,219 --> 00:23:51,637
[Gabrielle] She was broke. So
she was working both as a
writing

410
00:23:51,740 --> 00:23:54,122
advisor and secretary.
At the same time

411
00:23:54,225 --> 00:23:56,573
she was working at the
marine specialties store

412
00:23:56,676 --> 00:24:00,542
and she was doing typing
for many different people.

413
00:24:00,646 --> 00:24:04,201
She was doing what you need
to do to be a working artist.

414
00:24:04,373 --> 00:24:06,237
[telephone rings]

415
00:24:06,341 --> 00:24:07,860
[man on phone] Is it a
bad time for you?

416
00:24:07,963 --> 00:24:09,344
[Molly] No. I was coming in with
some

417
00:24:09,448 --> 00:24:10,379
animal food.

418
00:24:10,483 --> 00:24:13,452
[man] Oh God. Oh, how's Mary's
father?

419
00:24:13,555 --> 00:24:15,592
[Molly] Not well at
all. He’s real bad.

420
00:24:15,695 --> 00:24:17,421
She's gotta stay for a while.

421
00:24:17,525 --> 00:24:19,699
First through Mary,
actually, they started working

422
00:24:19,803 --> 00:24:22,599
for Norman Mailer because
Mary started doing some typing

423
00:24:22,702 --> 00:24:25,464
and then Molly stepped in to
say that she could take on more

424
00:24:25,567 --> 00:24:26,706
of the enormous work

425
00:24:26,810 --> 00:24:29,916
that was managing Mailer's
career in those years.

426
00:24:30,020 --> 00:24:31,918
[Norman on phone] I'm worried.
What I'm worried about is I'm
not sure

427
00:24:32,022 --> 00:24:33,437
how long I can keep doing this.

428
00:24:33,541 --> 00:24:34,956
With every other
responsibility I have

429
00:24:35,059 --> 00:24:37,027
on my mind, there’s
you too, you know.

430
00:24:37,130 --> 00:24:38,477
The money may just run out.

431
00:24:38,580 --> 00:24:41,445
I want you to pay first
the people who work for me.

432
00:24:41,549 --> 00:24:44,759
So you, Mary, the people
who work for me come first

433
00:24:44,862 --> 00:24:48,176
and tradespeople second,
and the wives last.

434
00:24:48,279 --> 00:24:50,834
-[Molly] Okay -[Norman] Okay,
beautiful. Bye-bye.

435
00:24:52,180 --> 00:24:54,078
[Mary] If you want to be a
writer,

436
00:24:54,182 --> 00:24:57,461
I would say give your second
best energy to your boss.

437
00:24:57,565 --> 00:24:59,428
Writing is a really
hard taskmaster

438
00:24:59,532 --> 00:25:02,121
and if you do not want
to do it as well as you can

439
00:25:02,224 --> 00:25:04,157
do it, it's sort of like
a piano player.

440
00:25:04,261 --> 00:25:06,539
I mean, who wants to listen
to a piano player who just

441
00:25:06,643 --> 00:25:08,472
wants to play a little bit?

442
00:25:09,956 --> 00:25:12,407
[Donika] "It is six a.m,
and I am working.

443
00:25:12,511 --> 00:25:14,823
I am absent-minded,
reckless, heedless

444
00:25:14,927 --> 00:25:16,756
of social obligations, etc.

445
00:25:16,860 --> 00:25:19,448
It is as it must be.
The tire goes flat,

446
00:25:19,552 --> 00:25:20,795
the tooth falls out,

447
00:25:20,898 --> 00:25:23,176
there will be a hundred
meals without mustard.

448
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:24,661
The poem gets written.

449
00:25:24,764 --> 00:25:27,387
I have wrestled with the angel
and I am stained with light

450
00:25:27,491 --> 00:25:29,079
and I have no shame.

451
00:25:29,182 --> 00:25:30,598
Neither do I have guilt.

452
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:35,499
My responsibility is not to
the ordinary, or the timely.

453
00:25:35,603 --> 00:25:37,777
It does not include
mustard, or teeth.

454
00:25:37,881 --> 00:25:39,848
It does not extend
to the lost button,

455
00:25:39,952 --> 00:25:41,643
or the beans in the pot.

456
00:25:41,747 --> 00:25:44,335
My loyalty is to the
inner vision, whenever

457
00:25:44,439 --> 00:25:47,511
and howsoever it may
arrive. If I have a meeting

458
00:25:47,615 --> 00:25:50,549
with you at three o'clock,
rejoice if I am late.

459
00:25:50,652 --> 00:25:54,242
Rejoice even more if I
do not arrive at all."

460
00:25:54,345 --> 00:25:56,313
[Mary] I am very disciplined
about working.

461
00:25:56,416 --> 00:26:00,593
You do not accomplish anything
without discipline.

462
00:26:01,456 --> 00:26:05,529
The creative part of your
mind is ready all the time.

463
00:26:06,426 --> 00:26:09,326
And if you say to it, “Hey,

464
00:26:09,429 --> 00:26:11,811
let's have a date tomorrow
at 7:30 in the morning,

465
00:26:11,915 --> 00:26:14,331
I'll be there.” It will be
there.

466
00:26:15,919 --> 00:26:18,577
[♪]

467
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:20,682
[David] She was frustrated.

468
00:26:20,786 --> 00:26:22,270
She was turning 40

469
00:26:22,373 --> 00:26:25,411
and like all poets,
looking for a break.

470
00:26:26,654 --> 00:26:30,589
What I observed in her
was this humbleness,

471
00:26:30,692 --> 00:26:34,593
but it wasn't humbleness like
an artist often experiences,

472
00:26:34,696 --> 00:26:38,700
which is to say, “I’m no good,
I should just give this up.”

473
00:26:38,804 --> 00:26:40,840
She was sure of her work

474
00:26:40,944 --> 00:26:44,603
and never once to me
expressed any doubt in

475
00:26:44,706 --> 00:26:46,466
what she was here to do.

476
00:26:48,676 --> 00:26:50,609
[woman] She was writing poems
and sending them everywhere

477
00:26:50,712 --> 00:26:52,541
and seeing who would take them.

478
00:26:52,645 --> 00:26:55,648
One of the most important
places where she was publishing

479
00:26:55,752 --> 00:26:58,271
during that period of time
was The New York Times.

480
00:26:59,618 --> 00:27:01,654
[♪]

481
00:27:01,861 --> 00:27:06,003
What was important to her was
who can open the newspaper

482
00:27:06,107 --> 00:27:09,006
and find a poem that
might change their life.

483
00:27:09,662 --> 00:27:12,423
[Mary] What about people who are
going to get a nice magazine

484
00:27:12,527 --> 00:27:14,909
and read a business article?

485
00:27:15,495 --> 00:27:17,532
How do you attract them to
poetry?

486
00:27:17,636 --> 00:27:19,603
I was of the opinion
that most anybody

487
00:27:19,707 --> 00:27:22,848
who starts a sentence
will finish that sentence

488
00:27:22,951 --> 00:27:25,505
and so quite a number of
these poems are 36 lines,

489
00:27:25,609 --> 00:27:27,576
but they're one sentence.

490
00:27:28,439 --> 00:27:31,684
That was the spine
of how she was living

491
00:27:31,788 --> 00:27:35,654
because she had a a personal
loan that was for $25 a month

492
00:27:35,757 --> 00:27:38,380
and that's how much she
was paid by The Times.

493
00:27:38,795 --> 00:27:42,833
She was seeking the
support of some publisher

494
00:27:42,937 --> 00:27:46,147
who saw in her work
what she knew was there.

495
00:27:46,250 --> 00:27:49,529
[Lindsay] “The Night Traveler”
received a review from Joyce
Carol Oates

496
00:27:49,633 --> 00:27:51,773
and that really
changed everything.

497
00:27:51,877 --> 00:27:55,294
[Joyce] She sees the true terror
of the country

498
00:27:55,397 --> 00:27:58,849
as nature's pitiless
disregard for the individual,

499
00:27:58,953 --> 00:28:01,369
with a prey or predator.

500
00:28:01,472 --> 00:28:05,200
She cannot divide the world
into victim and oppressor.

501
00:28:05,476 --> 00:28:08,376
She learned what a really
considered review could do

502
00:28:08,479 --> 00:28:09,688
and it began really selling.

503
00:28:11,241 --> 00:28:13,243
"I thought the earth
remembered me,

504
00:28:13,346 --> 00:28:16,591
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts,

505
00:28:16,695 --> 00:28:19,628
her pockets full of
lichens and seeds.

506
00:28:19,732 --> 00:28:23,736
I slept as never before,
a stone on the river bed,

507
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,739
nothing between me and
the white fire of the stars but

508
00:28:26,843 --> 00:28:31,123
my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the

509
00:28:31,226 --> 00:28:33,435
branches of the perfect trees."

510
00:28:33,539 --> 00:28:34,643
[woman] "All night

511
00:28:34,747 --> 00:28:37,716
I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me,

512
00:28:37,819 --> 00:28:40,063
the insects, and the birds

513
00:28:40,166 --> 00:28:42,997
who do their work
in the darkness.

514
00:28:43,100 --> 00:28:47,864
All night I rose and fell,
as if in water, grappling

515
00:28:47,967 --> 00:28:51,522
with a luminous doom. By
morning

516
00:28:51,626 --> 00:28:57,218
I had vanished at least a dozen
times into something better."

517
00:28:59,289 --> 00:29:00,842
I wrote for many I
wrote for about 30 years

518
00:29:00,946 --> 00:29:02,154
before I ever gave a reading.

519
00:29:02,257 --> 00:29:04,777
I mean, if you start when
I was a kid.

520
00:29:04,881 --> 00:29:06,779
Trying to find my own voice
took a long enough time

521
00:29:06,883 --> 00:29:08,781
and I didn't want to read
till I did that.

522
00:29:08,885 --> 00:29:10,334
And the first book I did

523
00:29:10,438 --> 00:29:13,303
that I felt was my own voice
was“Twelve Moons.”

524
00:29:13,682 --> 00:29:14,925
[Major] Reading that book,

525
00:29:15,029 --> 00:29:19,619
I was so enamored. Even though
we were separated by gender,

526
00:29:19,723 --> 00:29:23,554
even though there was at
least 33 years difference

527
00:29:23,658 --> 00:29:26,178
between us, I took to her

528
00:29:26,281 --> 00:29:28,007
because the deep kind

529
00:29:28,111 --> 00:29:31,942
of lyric presence leapt
off the page for me.

530
00:29:32,046 --> 00:29:36,084
I can hear that sense
of rapture in her work.

531
00:29:36,602 --> 00:29:38,707
[Mary] People have forgotten
to be ecstatic.

532
00:29:40,779 --> 00:29:42,504
I mean, you could
get ecstatic over

533
00:29:42,608 --> 00:29:43,920
a box of matches.

534
00:29:44,023 --> 00:29:45,887
They're kind of,
you know, amazing.

535
00:29:45,991 --> 00:29:49,132
And it's the balance
with the rage, I suppose,

536
00:29:49,235 --> 00:29:50,754
the emptiness.

537
00:29:50,858 --> 00:29:52,514
Emptiness is never going to
get us to get up

538
00:29:52,618 --> 00:29:54,102
and do anything.

539
00:29:54,206 --> 00:29:56,104
But ecstasy might.

540
00:29:58,037 --> 00:30:02,455
[David] Mary had an idea that
every poem she wrote, she
submitted

541
00:30:02,559 --> 00:30:04,423
to three tests.

542
00:30:04,526 --> 00:30:06,356
Does it have a spiritual
purpose?

543
00:30:06,459 --> 00:30:08,496
Does it have a sincere energy?

544
00:30:08,599 --> 00:30:10,705
and does it have a genuine body?

545
00:30:11,119 --> 00:30:13,156
[♪]

546
00:30:13,432 --> 00:30:16,021
[Mary] I think you have to be
in the world to understand

547
00:30:16,124 --> 00:30:17,470
what the spiritual is about

548
00:30:17,574 --> 00:30:21,647
and you have to be spiritual
in order to really be able

549
00:30:21,750 --> 00:30:23,994
to accept what
the world is about.

550
00:30:25,340 --> 00:30:28,240
We're all going to be
something else,

551
00:30:28,343 --> 00:30:30,345
part of something else,
someday.

552
00:30:30,449 --> 00:30:32,002
I mean, I certainly
believe for instance,

553
00:30:32,106 --> 00:30:33,521
that stones are alive.

554
00:30:33,624 --> 00:30:35,247
[woman] You believe stones are
alive?

555
00:30:35,350 --> 00:30:37,283
[Mary] I believe everything is
alive.

556
00:30:41,909 --> 00:30:44,635
[D. Graham] The move to a kind
of

557
00:30:45,188 --> 00:30:49,848
delicious deep dive into
the natural world,

558
00:30:49,951 --> 00:30:55,129
can be read as a certain
kind of escapism.

559
00:30:55,232 --> 00:30:59,064
So when people are sort of
not down with nature poetry,

560
00:30:59,167 --> 00:31:02,446
one way they can sort of
be like, “Eh, you know, really?”

561
00:31:02,550 --> 00:31:03,723
Is like, “Hey,

562
00:31:03,827 --> 00:31:07,658
are you noticing what's
happening there in the cities?”

563
00:31:09,488 --> 00:31:11,214
[V] Well, I was snarky.
I was a New Yorker.

564
00:31:11,317 --> 00:31:14,044
I lived in the world of cement.

565
00:31:14,873 --> 00:31:18,048
I was so sarcastic about
Mary when I was younger

566
00:31:18,152 --> 00:31:20,775
because I was so
sarcastic about the Earth.

567
00:31:20,879 --> 00:31:24,020
I was so detached
and disassociated

568
00:31:24,123 --> 00:31:27,437
and so poetry about the
Earth, I actually made fun of.

569
00:31:31,268 --> 00:31:33,822
[David] She did not fit in. Her
poems,

570
00:31:33,926 --> 00:31:36,032
probably, to editors,
felt antique

571
00:31:36,135 --> 00:31:38,862
because they seemed
like late Romantic poems

572
00:31:38,966 --> 00:31:40,105
of a hundred years before.

573
00:31:40,208 --> 00:31:42,417
She had her grievances.

574
00:31:42,521 --> 00:31:46,939
She really disliked being
categorized as a nature poet.

575
00:31:48,458 --> 00:31:51,426
[Frank] She just thought
it was a silly idea.

576
00:31:51,979 --> 00:31:55,430
I mean, my God, what's
a nature poet? You know?

577
00:31:57,225 --> 00:31:58,847
Why the great
interest in nature?

578
00:31:58,951 --> 00:32:01,126
One of the great concerns,

579
00:32:01,229 --> 00:32:04,301
I think, is the fact that
we are moving so thoroughly

580
00:32:04,405 --> 00:32:09,410
to an urban environment
and without experience

581
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:11,653
with the natural world,

582
00:32:11,757 --> 00:32:14,863
you cannot appreciate the body

583
00:32:14,967 --> 00:32:18,522
of literature which you have
inherited because all the

584
00:32:18,626 --> 00:32:23,286
figurative language, all
the metaphors, have to do

585
00:32:23,389 --> 00:32:24,839
with the natural world.

586
00:32:24,943 --> 00:32:27,566
And so, there is a rift now

587
00:32:27,669 --> 00:32:29,464
between people who wake
up and it's daylight.

588
00:32:29,568 --> 00:32:31,018
They don't wake up
and see the sunrise

589
00:32:31,121 --> 00:32:33,606
and how can they understand a
line which says, “It is the
east

590
00:32:33,710 --> 00:32:35,988
and Juliet is the sun”?

591
00:32:37,990 --> 00:32:41,960
She made me see the beauty
that she saw definitely,

592
00:32:42,063 --> 00:32:45,549
and that's really great
because I'm not naturally

593
00:32:45,653 --> 00:32:47,103
that's not my scene really.

594
00:32:47,206 --> 00:32:49,519
I would say nature is planning

595
00:32:49,622 --> 00:32:51,452
to kill you from
the day you're born.

596
00:32:51,555 --> 00:32:53,178
I don't know what's
so great about it.

597
00:32:54,938 --> 00:32:57,734
[man] Mary wants to
empty that self out

598
00:32:58,148 --> 00:33:01,289
as if she could go into the
woods without having a history,

599
00:33:01,393 --> 00:33:04,396
without having a
biography, to allow the reader

600
00:33:04,499 --> 00:33:06,985
to step into that
space and be her.

601
00:33:09,021 --> 00:33:12,887
Once you find the language
to describe the natural world,

602
00:33:12,991 --> 00:33:14,302
it's hard to degrade it.

603
00:33:14,406 --> 00:33:15,648
It's hard to pollute it,

604
00:33:15,752 --> 00:33:19,100
but ‘nature poet’ can be a
box that one does not want

605
00:33:19,204 --> 00:33:21,551
to merely be confined in.

606
00:33:23,484 --> 00:33:26,107
[Ada] I have heard many stories
about her not wanting

607
00:33:26,211 --> 00:33:29,145
to participate in
certain anthologies and

608
00:33:29,248 --> 00:33:31,457
not wanting be to be labeled.

609
00:33:31,561 --> 00:33:34,253
[Mary] I do refuse to be in
in women's anthologies

610
00:33:34,357 --> 00:33:36,635
and people wonder why
and they take offense.

611
00:33:36,738 --> 00:33:38,982
I'm certainly for equality,

612
00:33:39,086 --> 00:33:43,228
but the tendency of
the feminist point of view

613
00:33:43,331 --> 00:33:45,989
to separate, I can see nothing

614
00:33:46,093 --> 00:33:48,785
for it except one thing it'll
sell.

615
00:33:48,888 --> 00:33:51,650
Any marketing person would
say, “Hey, here's a good idea.

616
00:33:51,753 --> 00:33:53,859
Let's do women cooking,

617
00:33:53,962 --> 00:33:57,207
and then we'll do men cooking,
then we'll do dogs cooking.”

618
00:33:59,002 --> 00:34:01,142
Look, Mary was a feminist,
of course she was a feminist.

619
00:34:01,246 --> 00:34:04,283
She was an independent woman
who loved who she wanted

620
00:34:04,387 --> 00:34:05,836
to love, who wrote the poetry,

621
00:34:05,940 --> 00:34:08,943
she wanted to write, who lived
where she wanted to live.

622
00:34:09,047 --> 00:34:11,290
I mean, come on, what is
more feminist than that?

623
00:34:11,532 --> 00:34:13,568
[Gabrielle] When I go and I talk
about Mary as a lesbian,

624
00:34:13,672 --> 00:34:15,156
it is true, I will still have
a lot of people come up

625
00:34:15,329 --> 00:34:16,813
to me and say, “I never
knew that about her.

626
00:34:16,916 --> 00:34:20,851
And I've read all of her books.”
And I'm like, okay, you know.

627
00:34:21,783 --> 00:34:26,754
But her love for Molly,
her love for

628
00:34:26,857 --> 00:34:29,653
female bodies,
like her love for love

629
00:34:29,757 --> 00:34:33,071
and eroticism,
was always present.

630
00:34:33,174 --> 00:34:35,245
And yet it did also seem to me

631
00:34:35,349 --> 00:34:36,522
that she talked
about it in a way

632
00:34:36,626 --> 00:34:38,938
that was pretty different
than a lot of the other people

633
00:34:39,042 --> 00:34:40,319
that I was reading at that time.

634
00:34:40,423 --> 00:34:42,010
Part of that really has to do

635
00:34:42,114 --> 00:34:46,256
with extremely complicated
feelings about privacy

636
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:48,016
and romantic love.

637
00:34:48,914 --> 00:34:52,366
We live in a time where
it's really hard for us

638
00:34:52,469 --> 00:34:55,196
to not connect
privacy and shame,

639
00:34:56,163 --> 00:35:00,339
but she was a deeply
romantic person who felt

640
00:35:00,443 --> 00:35:04,723
that love was like a close
to religious experience.

641
00:35:06,725 --> 00:35:11,730
[Mary] We were talkers about
our work, our pasts, our
friends,

642
00:35:11,833 --> 00:35:15,389
our ideas, ordinary
and farfetched.

643
00:35:15,492 --> 00:35:18,806
We would often wake before
there was light in the sky

644
00:35:18,909 --> 00:35:22,396
and make coffee and let our
minds rattle our tongues.

645
00:35:24,052 --> 00:35:26,848
We would end in
exhaustion and elation.

646
00:35:26,952 --> 00:35:28,678
Not many nights
or early mornings

647
00:35:28,781 --> 00:35:30,404
later, we would do the same.

648
00:35:32,406 --> 00:35:34,166
[John] They were definitely
a complete out couple,

649
00:35:34,270 --> 00:35:35,547
completely everywhere,

650
00:35:35,650 --> 00:35:40,103
but they weren't
lesbian activists in any

651
00:35:40,207 --> 00:35:41,277
possible way.

652
00:35:49,975 --> 00:35:52,771
[Mary] It has not come to me
to write about it,

653
00:35:52,874 --> 00:35:54,876
but I certainly
think about it a lot.

654
00:35:54,980 --> 00:35:58,017
It's very, very hard to want

655
00:35:58,121 --> 00:35:59,950
to write about a
particular subject like that

656
00:36:00,054 --> 00:36:01,159
and have it work.

657
00:36:01,262 --> 00:36:03,022
You have to have
something that impels you.

658
00:36:03,126 --> 00:36:04,438
I would be pleased with myself

659
00:36:04,541 --> 00:36:05,715
if I wrote a poem about AIDS

660
00:36:05,818 --> 00:36:08,096
and did a good job of it,
but it hasn't happened.

661
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:09,960
[John] Of course, they
knew people that had AIDS.

662
00:36:10,064 --> 00:36:12,584
I mean, half everybody
we knew died of AIDS.

663
00:36:12,687 --> 00:36:15,380
But she didn't address
current events, ever

664
00:36:15,483 --> 00:36:18,590
really. No, she was in
the woods like a crazy

665
00:36:18,693 --> 00:36:20,039
person talking to animals.

666
00:36:20,143 --> 00:36:23,181
There are poets who would
say, “Well, her responsibility

667
00:36:23,284 --> 00:36:25,873
in that moment should have
been saying she was a lesbian,

668
00:36:25,976 --> 00:36:28,220
opening doors
for the rest of us.”

669
00:36:28,841 --> 00:36:30,843
When I think about the
civic duty of a writer,

670
00:36:30,947 --> 00:36:34,744
there's immediately a part of
me that hates the word “civic”

671
00:36:34,847 --> 00:36:35,952
and hates the word “duty.”

672
00:36:36,055 --> 00:36:39,197
And I know that's funny
because I'm the Poet Laureate,

673
00:36:39,300 --> 00:36:44,271
but I really believe in
the resistance of an artist

674
00:36:44,478 --> 00:36:46,549
to be fully an artist.

675
00:36:47,032 --> 00:36:50,069
She lived a life like St.
Francis.

676
00:36:50,863 --> 00:36:54,764
She wasn't interested
in going to the world.

677
00:36:54,867 --> 00:36:59,562
She was interested in
opening up a space in herself

678
00:36:59,665 --> 00:37:03,462
and going deep enough so
that you meet everybody else.

679
00:37:04,429 --> 00:37:06,431
[♪]

680
00:37:06,638 --> 00:37:08,709
[Gabrielle] She had someone
in the formative part

681
00:37:08,812 --> 00:37:12,299
of her life, in Molly Malone
Cook, who took care of her.

682
00:37:12,402 --> 00:37:14,059
That's a huge deal.

683
00:37:14,162 --> 00:37:18,546
Molly ran the show. Definitely.

684
00:37:18,650 --> 00:37:22,757
[Gabrielle] You have time, you
have space, you might be so
broke,

685
00:37:22,861 --> 00:37:25,173
but this is the work
of your life and you

686
00:37:25,277 --> 00:37:27,175
and your partner have
decided everything is

687
00:37:27,279 --> 00:37:28,798
going to be done to protect it.

688
00:37:32,111 --> 00:37:34,113
[♪]

689
00:37:35,425 --> 00:37:39,049
[woman] These were still
really lean times.

690
00:37:39,602 --> 00:37:41,638
She was 48 years old.

691
00:37:41,742 --> 00:37:44,814
She had had various
visiting teacher positions,

692
00:37:44,917 --> 00:37:46,333
but nothing consistent.

693
00:37:46,436 --> 00:37:48,369
She really was still
struggling.

694
00:37:50,578 --> 00:37:52,028
[Mary] I was at that time going
out

695
00:37:52,131 --> 00:37:54,582
to the dump most mornings
to buy shingles.

696
00:37:54,686 --> 00:37:57,413
I was shingling the house
and a friend of mine came by,

697
00:37:57,516 --> 00:37:58,931
She said, “Ha, what
are you doing?

698
00:37:59,035 --> 00:38:00,692
Looking for your
old manuscripts?”

699
00:38:00,795 --> 00:38:02,901
The winners of the 1984
Pulitzer

700
00:38:03,004 --> 00:38:04,282
Prizes were announced today.

701
00:38:04,385 --> 00:38:06,939
They included Mary Oliver
for her book of poetry,

702
00:38:07,043 --> 00:38:08,216
“American Primitive.”

703
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:10,391
[woman] It was a big surprise,
you know, to her

704
00:38:10,495 --> 00:38:12,117
and to everyone who knew her.

705
00:38:12,220 --> 00:38:15,983
[John] Mary won the Pulitzer! So
deserving and so exciting

706
00:38:16,086 --> 00:38:17,916
-[woman] And you didn't know?
-[Mary] I knew but

707
00:38:18,019 --> 00:38:21,229
my job in the morning
was to go find some shingles.

708
00:38:21,954 --> 00:38:24,129
[Frank] Molly was very happy
about it

709
00:38:24,232 --> 00:38:25,993
and very happy to talk about
it.

710
00:38:26,096 --> 00:38:29,099
Mary, typically just sort of,

711
00:38:29,203 --> 00:38:31,032
yeah, shrugged it off.

712
00:38:32,206 --> 00:38:33,932
[♪]

713
00:38:34,035 --> 00:38:37,211
[man] “American Primitive,”
because it does win

714
00:38:37,315 --> 00:38:41,905
the Pulitzer Prize, is when
Mary Oliver launches into

715
00:38:42,009 --> 00:38:43,735
her celebrityhood.

716
00:38:43,838 --> 00:38:46,531
And I'm sorry we don't have
enough chairs for everybody.

717
00:38:46,634 --> 00:38:50,431
I have the opportunity this
evening of presenting to you

718
00:38:50,535 --> 00:38:52,813
a really exciting poet.

719
00:38:53,641 --> 00:38:55,643
[applause]

720
00:38:56,092 --> 00:38:58,750
[Mary] Thank you.
I have to get used to this.

721
00:38:58,853 --> 00:39:01,339
[woman] Mary Oliver has won the
Pulitzer Prize for her book,

722
00:39:01,442 --> 00:39:04,721
“American Primitive,” and in
1992, the National Book Award.

723
00:39:04,825 --> 00:39:07,655
Mary Oliver won the National
Book Award for Poetry.

724
00:39:07,759 --> 00:39:11,141
So I'm a scribbler, I'm a
catcher of whatever is given.

725
00:39:11,245 --> 00:39:14,524
[reporter] It took Mary Oliver
more than 27 years of
scribbling,

726
00:39:14,628 --> 00:39:15,939
writing and revising

727
00:39:16,043 --> 00:39:18,701
to complete the works in
her award-winning book,

728
00:39:18,804 --> 00:39:20,530
“New and Selected Poems.”

729
00:39:20,634 --> 00:39:24,465
[John] Think about it, not many
poets’ careers blast off,

730
00:39:25,397 --> 00:39:27,399
but her’s sure did.

731
00:39:27,503 --> 00:39:30,229
[woman] In the wake of those
two major prizes,

732
00:39:30,333 --> 00:39:31,921
it was more like:
“This is what I'm doing.

733
00:39:32,024 --> 00:39:34,372
It has a home, it’s
going to be published.”

734
00:39:34,475 --> 00:39:38,030
There is nothing to me
so exciting as the fact

735
00:39:38,134 --> 00:39:40,999
that somebody who's not
even born yet will be able

736
00:39:41,102 --> 00:39:44,416
to have a whole set of
emotional reactions.

737
00:39:47,523 --> 00:39:51,596
"The summer day.
Who made the world?

738
00:39:52,907 --> 00:39:54,012
Who made the swan,

739
00:39:54,115 --> 00:39:57,740
and the black bear? Who
made the grasshopper?

740
00:39:58,672 --> 00:40:02,158
This grasshopper, I mean the
one who has flung herself out

741
00:40:02,261 --> 00:40:06,473
of the grass, the one who is
eating sugar out of my hand,

742
00:40:06,576 --> 00:40:09,545
who is moving her jaws
back and forth instead of up

743
00:40:09,648 --> 00:40:13,307
and down who is gazing
around with her enormous

744
00:40:13,411 --> 00:40:14,791
and complicated eyes.

745
00:40:15,896 --> 00:40:18,036
Now she lifts her pale forearms

746
00:40:18,139 --> 00:40:20,556
and thoroughly washes her face.

747
00:40:20,659 --> 00:40:24,560
Now she snaps her wings
open, and floats away.

748
00:40:25,595 --> 00:40:28,046
I don't know exactly
what a prayer is.

749
00:40:28,460 --> 00:40:30,738
I do know how to
pay attention, how

750
00:40:30,842 --> 00:40:35,847
to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,

751
00:40:36,226 --> 00:40:38,228
how to be idle and blessed,

752
00:40:39,575 --> 00:40:43,751
-how to--"
-[man] "How to stroll

753
00:40:43,855 --> 00:40:48,687
through the fields, which is
what I have been doing all day.

754
00:40:48,791 --> 00:40:51,897
Tell me, what else
should I have done?

755
00:40:52,380 --> 00:40:56,074
Doesn't everything die
at last, and too soon?

756
00:40:56,177 --> 00:41:00,941
Tell me, what is it you plan
to do with your one wild

757
00:41:01,044 --> 00:41:02,943
and precious life?"

758
00:41:04,565 --> 00:41:07,775
It’s great every single
time. It almost I’m almost

759
00:41:07,879 --> 00:41:11,641
I'm kind of like
verklempt. Which is wild.

760
00:41:12,539 --> 00:41:13,919
How, how?

761
00:41:16,094 --> 00:41:19,338
I don't know how it all works.
Whatever that life whatever

762
00:41:19,442 --> 00:41:22,894
that energy is, whatever the
intangible, inexplicable energy

763
00:41:22,997 --> 00:41:26,622
is, that makes us go.
You can feel that

764
00:41:26,725 --> 00:41:29,728
and that's power.

765
00:41:30,453 --> 00:41:33,594
Who made the world?
Ugh, who made you?

766
00:41:33,939 --> 00:41:36,390
What do you forgive
the world for it’s beauty?

767
00:41:36,494 --> 00:41:38,530
Everything. Can you forgive

768
00:41:38,634 --> 00:41:41,568
yourself, for your own beauty?

769
00:41:46,814 --> 00:41:51,785
When I read Mary's poetry,
I assent to every line.

770
00:41:52,544 --> 00:41:55,582
I say “Yes, yes, yes.”

771
00:41:56,583 --> 00:42:01,242
And besides her text
itself is full of

772
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:06,903
huge, imponderable,
unanswerable questions

773
00:42:08,180 --> 00:42:12,288
like “What am I supposed to do?”

774
00:42:13,565 --> 00:42:17,293
If you grow up writing
poetry, you don't really expect

775
00:42:17,396 --> 00:42:19,260
that anybody's going to
pay attention to it.

776
00:42:19,364 --> 00:42:21,435
Whoever thinks that
someone might write you

777
00:42:21,539 --> 00:42:23,161
a fan letter about a poem,

778
00:42:24,542 --> 00:42:26,164
People come over to me
and start crying

779
00:42:26,267 --> 00:42:27,510
and saying, “You saved my life.”

780
00:42:27,614 --> 00:42:29,995
I'm sure she gets a thousand
more of that kind of thing.

781
00:42:30,099 --> 00:42:32,584
And I'm sure she did. She
really spoke to people.

782
00:42:35,967 --> 00:42:37,624
[♪]

783
00:42:37,727 --> 00:42:39,833
[woman] I don't think a poet
like her comes along very often

784
00:42:39,936 --> 00:42:41,420
and I think that
poet does get found

785
00:42:41,524 --> 00:42:43,561
by the people who need her.

786
00:42:47,634 --> 00:42:48,911
[man] I love the way

787
00:42:49,843 --> 00:42:52,673
that you all love Mary.

788
00:42:55,745 --> 00:42:58,576
[Gabrielle] I mean, it was like
flies to flypaper.

789
00:42:59,542 --> 00:43:00,474
Let's just be honest.

790
00:43:00,578 --> 00:43:01,786
Let me be the person to say

791
00:43:01,889 --> 00:43:05,030
that people were turned on
by Mary Oliver.

792
00:43:06,549 --> 00:43:09,448
[applause]

793
00:43:09,552 --> 00:43:10,898
[David] There was that famous
picture

794
00:43:11,002 --> 00:43:13,245
of her sitting on a
sea wall somewhere

795
00:43:13,349 --> 00:43:14,453
with her sleeves rolled up.

796
00:43:14,557 --> 00:43:16,248
It's like the
Walt Whitman picture of

797
00:43:16,352 --> 00:43:18,596
him in his loose pirate shirt.

798
00:43:20,011 --> 00:43:23,186
[Gabrelle] When I saw this photo
of Mary Oliver,

799
00:43:23,290 --> 00:43:25,292
the way like she's looking out,

800
00:43:25,395 --> 00:43:26,983
she's a little bit cruising you

801
00:43:27,087 --> 00:43:29,020
in that photo, or a lot.

802
00:43:29,848 --> 00:43:33,645
I looked at this person
just looking out at me

803
00:43:33,749 --> 00:43:37,304
and I was just like, oh my God,

804
00:43:37,407 --> 00:43:42,136
I want that. Not even in
like a sexual way, like I want

805
00:43:42,240 --> 00:43:44,518
to be able to do that.

806
00:43:45,623 --> 00:43:48,453
When we talk about queer
family,

807
00:43:48,556 --> 00:43:50,835
one of the things about family

808
00:43:50,938 --> 00:43:53,596
is that you just have
someone to emulate.

809
00:43:54,183 --> 00:43:58,290
[John] It was then Mary's career
was what this couple was about.

810
00:43:59,740 --> 00:44:03,502
Molly was like a police
dog if a tourist came

811
00:44:03,606 --> 00:44:05,746
and tried to knock
on her front door.

812
00:44:06,782 --> 00:44:09,474
And Molly always was “No!”
to everything.

813
00:44:09,577 --> 00:44:12,650
Molly wouldn't let them get
anywhere near her.

814
00:44:12,753 --> 00:44:13,961
[John] She was a very tough
agent,

815
00:44:14,065 --> 00:44:16,343
but I think she certainly
looked out for her.

816
00:44:16,446 --> 00:44:20,485
[Gabrielle] Really nothing in
the outside world got to Mary

817
00:44:20,588 --> 00:44:23,591
unless it got to Mary
through Molly.

818
00:44:24,178 --> 00:44:27,423
[John] It's weird. The more
accepted and famous

819
00:44:27,526 --> 00:44:29,528
and more she sold,

820
00:44:29,632 --> 00:44:32,670
the less critically good
the reviews were.

821
00:44:32,773 --> 00:44:34,810
And I always wondered
if people were mad

822
00:44:34,913 --> 00:44:36,156
She was the number one poet.

823
00:44:36,259 --> 00:44:38,503
-It seemed like they were.
-[William] Lots of poets are

824
00:44:38,606 --> 00:44:40,229
in love with the ordinary,

825
00:44:40,332 --> 00:44:43,542
but should the ordinary
seem so ordinary?

826
00:44:43,646 --> 00:44:45,717
It’s as if you've been
promised a miracle,

827
00:44:45,821 --> 00:44:47,305
yet all that lies
on the tablecloth

828
00:44:47,408 --> 00:44:51,792
before you is a dead mouse
on a garbage can lid.

829
00:44:51,896 --> 00:44:55,382
You know, Molly would
get really would fume about

830
00:44:55,485 --> 00:44:57,625
something like that, and
Mary would just

831
00:44:57,729 --> 00:45:00,628
she'd go, “huh.”

832
00:45:02,182 --> 00:45:07,774
The conundrum with
poetry is that sometimes

833
00:45:07,877 --> 00:45:11,467
when you gain the people,
you can lose the poets.

834
00:45:11,743 --> 00:45:14,539
[crowd applause, music]

835
00:45:15,367 --> 00:45:17,818
[Donika] I was having a
conversation with

836
00:45:17,922 --> 00:45:20,994
some poets about Mary
Oliver some years ago now,

837
00:45:21,097 --> 00:45:24,204
and one of them said, “If
you've read one Mary Oliver
poem,

838
00:45:24,307 --> 00:45:28,070
you've read them all.” Which
was a wild statement to me.

839
00:45:28,173 --> 00:45:32,902
I was that felt like a

840
00:45:33,006 --> 00:45:36,768
like a perfect
kind of dismissal.

841
00:45:36,872 --> 00:45:41,152
For some people that
simplicity is suspicious,

842
00:45:41,255 --> 00:45:43,948
but also so many of us
know we can't do it.

843
00:45:44,051 --> 00:45:46,260
I think at a certain
point I was like, okay,

844
00:45:46,364 --> 00:45:47,848
I want to see more with Mary.

845
00:45:47,952 --> 00:45:49,401
Like I really did want to see
more.

846
00:45:49,505 --> 00:45:51,921
And also knowing a little
more about her, I'm like,

847
00:45:52,025 --> 00:45:53,233
I know there's a lot
more to her life

848
00:45:53,336 --> 00:45:54,441
than just waking up
in the morning

849
00:45:54,544 --> 00:45:57,893
and going out for a walk.
Like, what is the storm?

850
00:45:57,996 --> 00:46:00,654
But again, like I haven't
read all her work.

851
00:46:00,758 --> 00:46:01,862
I read a lot at the beginning

852
00:46:01,966 --> 00:46:04,658
and then I was like,
“Okay, I get this.”

853
00:46:04,762 --> 00:46:07,695
I'm getting a little critical
now.

854
00:46:07,799 --> 00:46:11,078
[Ruth] I was shocked researching
that New Yorker piece.

855
00:46:11,182 --> 00:46:12,493
I was shocked to discover

856
00:46:12,597 --> 00:46:15,358
that Mary Oliver had never
received a full length

857
00:46:15,462 --> 00:46:16,981
book review in
The New York Times.

858
00:46:17,084 --> 00:46:20,053
And that struck me
as such an indication

859
00:46:20,156 --> 00:46:23,815
of the ridiculously
low level of respect

860
00:46:23,919 --> 00:46:27,854
that she was getting from
the poetry establishment.

861
00:46:27,957 --> 00:46:30,097
[Gabrielle] It's not just that
people said, “Oh, her poems
aren't good.”

862
00:46:30,201 --> 00:46:34,446
It was like teaching a student
a Mary Oliver poem would like

863
00:46:34,550 --> 00:46:36,241
somehow ruin poetry.

864
00:46:36,345 --> 00:46:38,692
Because like then people
might start writing like

865
00:46:38,796 --> 00:46:43,248
Mary Oliver. First of all,
you wish, like, try it.

866
00:46:47,045 --> 00:46:50,428
[man] On the surface it looks
awful easy, what she was doing,

867
00:46:50,531 --> 00:46:51,878
but it's not easy.

868
00:46:54,225 --> 00:46:58,574
She's going to the deepest,
most contradictory places

869
00:46:58,677 --> 00:47:01,473
where life and death usher
from the same source.

870
00:47:01,577 --> 00:47:02,578
And then she's speaking

871
00:47:02,681 --> 00:47:04,476
with clear language
about that mystery.

872
00:47:06,168 --> 00:47:08,239
[♪]

873
00:47:08,618 --> 00:47:11,276
[man] "The first fish I ever
caught would not lie down

874
00:47:11,380 --> 00:47:13,485
quiet in the pail but flailed

875
00:47:13,589 --> 00:47:16,764
and sucked at the burning
amazement of the air

876
00:47:16,868 --> 00:47:19,837
and died in the slow
pouring off of rainbows.

877
00:47:22,322 --> 00:47:24,220
Later I opened his body

878
00:47:24,324 --> 00:47:27,430
and separated the flesh
from the bones and ate him.

879
00:47:28,466 --> 00:47:32,366
Now the sea is in me:
I am the fish,

880
00:47:32,470 --> 00:47:34,472
the fish glitters in me;

881
00:47:34,575 --> 00:47:37,061
we are risen,
tangled together, certain

882
00:47:37,164 --> 00:47:39,235
to fall back to the sea.

883
00:47:39,339 --> 00:47:42,894
Out of pain, and pain,
and more pain

884
00:47:42,998 --> 00:47:48,175
we feed this feverish plot, we
are nourished by the mystery.

885
00:47:50,212 --> 00:47:52,110
[♪]

886
00:47:52,214 --> 00:47:55,458
[woman] People think of her
walking the beaches

887
00:47:55,562 --> 00:47:58,013
of Provincetown
without troubling anyone

888
00:47:58,116 --> 00:48:00,118
or having troubles herself

889
00:48:00,222 --> 00:48:03,604
and that certainly wasn't
the life that she led.

890
00:48:04,674 --> 00:48:07,470
Everybody thinks Mary was
this little earth mother.

891
00:48:07,574 --> 00:48:11,474
Mary did not suffer fools
and she caused trouble.

892
00:48:11,578 --> 00:48:14,477
She was shit-stirrer.
You wouldn't think she would

893
00:48:14,581 --> 00:48:16,479
chain smoke. You'd think
she's this healthy person

894
00:48:16,583 --> 00:48:19,793
that's in the woods
breathing the frog's air

895
00:48:19,897 --> 00:48:21,381
or something, but no.

896
00:48:21,484 --> 00:48:23,107
[David] She smoked cigarettes
like she ate

897
00:48:23,210 --> 00:48:24,487
turtle eggs off the beach.

898
00:48:24,591 --> 00:48:27,628
You know, she would
take one with great care

899
00:48:27,732 --> 00:48:32,219
and smoke that cigarette,
which I begged her to stop.

900
00:48:33,186 --> 00:48:35,636
I remember when she brought
me to Sweet Briar College

901
00:48:35,740 --> 00:48:38,329
where she taught for a while
to do my spoken word show

902
00:48:38,432 --> 00:48:41,366
and worked in the word
“asshole” into her introduction

903
00:48:41,470 --> 00:48:45,025
of me, in front of her
horrified poetry purists.

904
00:48:45,129 --> 00:48:47,096
[laughter]

905
00:48:49,650 --> 00:48:51,998
Teaching young writers
has also become a passion

906
00:48:52,101 --> 00:48:53,585
for Oliver, and she's decided

907
00:48:53,689 --> 00:48:56,934
to extend her stay at Sweet
Briar for at least another
year.

908
00:48:58,418 --> 00:49:03,147
[woman] I don't think I've read
a single poor student response.

909
00:49:03,250 --> 00:49:05,011
They're extraordinary.

910
00:49:06,322 --> 00:49:08,946
[man] In the early 1990s,
Mary Oliver published one

911
00:49:09,049 --> 00:49:11,465
of the great poetry craft
books,

912
00:49:11,569 --> 00:49:15,469
the“Poetry Handbook,”
and it's still a bestseller.

913
00:49:15,573 --> 00:49:18,024
I'm Natalie. I'm a published
poet

914
00:49:18,127 --> 00:49:20,681
and this is
‘books that changed my life,’

915
00:49:20,785 --> 00:49:22,028
part four.

916
00:49:22,131 --> 00:49:26,687
I just picked up this book
on the advice of a friend.

917
00:49:26,791 --> 00:49:29,242
This is a good introduction
to the different styles

918
00:49:29,345 --> 00:49:30,346
and the different forms.

919
00:49:30,450 --> 00:49:32,900
It has really good
tips for beginners.

920
00:49:33,004 --> 00:49:34,143
Just wanted to shout that out.

921
00:49:34,247 --> 00:49:35,524
[Mary] You've gotta know what
words

922
00:49:35,627 --> 00:49:36,697
sound like.

923
00:49:36,801 --> 00:49:38,492
Have you ever wondered
what's the difference

924
00:49:38,596 --> 00:49:41,081
between a stone and a rock?

925
00:49:41,185 --> 00:49:43,014
[Mary] The “K.”

926
00:49:43,635 --> 00:49:47,260
[woman] What advice would you
give to upcoming poets as
myself?

927
00:49:47,363 --> 00:49:49,814
[Mary] Be interested in the
whole world and not just
writing.

928
00:49:49,917 --> 00:49:51,954
Read a whole lot.

929
00:49:52,058 --> 00:49:55,026
Most important,
set yourself a schedule

930
00:49:55,130 --> 00:49:57,856
of writing every day.

931
00:49:57,960 --> 00:49:59,651
I've written everything I
know in that little book

932
00:49:59,755 --> 00:50:01,308
because I didn't want
to teach anymore.

933
00:50:01,412 --> 00:50:05,002
[woman] She joked saying the
hope was that the
books could go out

934
00:50:05,105 --> 00:50:07,659
and do the teaching and
she could stay at home.

935
00:50:08,522 --> 00:50:11,525
-[man] Hi there, Ms. Oliver.
-[woman] Dear Mary Oliver,

936
00:50:11,629 --> 00:50:12,975
-[man] Dear Mary Oliver,

937
00:50:13,079 --> 00:50:14,908
Do you guys remember
how I'd start each class?

938
00:50:15,012 --> 00:50:16,772
You’d usually do a poem.

939
00:50:16,875 --> 00:50:18,981
And 90% of the time it
was probably

940
00:50:19,085 --> 00:50:21,742
-like 94%. -We decided the whole
class would

941
00:50:21,846 --> 00:50:23,641
write letters to Mary Oliver.

942
00:50:23,744 --> 00:50:26,402
Like eighth grade authenticity.

943
00:50:26,506 --> 00:50:28,197
Dear Mary, writing

944
00:50:28,301 --> 00:50:31,787
and reading poems has become
an outlet for us lately as they

945
00:50:31,890 --> 00:50:35,170
provided blessings and
stanzas to live by.

946
00:50:35,273 --> 00:50:37,482
And we have learned
to appreciate poems

947
00:50:37,586 --> 00:50:40,830
and fully understand their
magical capabilities.

948
00:50:40,934 --> 00:50:44,110
Poetry is important
because it sets you free.

949
00:50:44,213 --> 00:50:47,527
Have you ever lived till poetry
pours out of your heart?

950
00:50:47,630 --> 00:50:48,666
It's in everyone.

951
00:50:48,769 --> 00:50:49,667
I've been reading your work for

952
00:50:49,770 --> 00:50:51,600
awhile and it makes me smile.

953
00:50:51,703 --> 00:50:53,084
I like the way
you talk about life

954
00:50:53,188 --> 00:50:54,327
and its virtue and meaning.

955
00:50:54,430 --> 00:50:55,673
Your poems have inspired me

956
00:50:55,776 --> 00:50:58,158
to do things I never
thought I could do.

957
00:50:58,262 --> 00:51:01,368
Your poems have inspired me
to accept myself for who I am,

958
00:51:01,472 --> 00:51:03,336
something I never
thought I could do.

959
00:51:03,439 --> 00:51:05,717
What I'm trying to say
is thank you.

960
00:51:05,821 --> 00:51:08,962
I wish you a day as beautiful
as the poems you write.

961
00:51:09,273 --> 00:51:11,378
I have little chills right now.

962
00:51:11,482 --> 00:51:13,380
I mean I remember
what I was going through

963
00:51:13,484 --> 00:51:15,762
in eighth grade when
I wrote this, and reading it

964
00:51:15,865 --> 00:51:18,661
I remember what I'm referencing.

965
00:51:21,388 --> 00:51:23,321
[David] We had a conversation
once about teaching

966
00:51:23,425 --> 00:51:25,392
and she told me, “You
know, it might be better

967
00:51:25,496 --> 00:51:29,396
for you if you quit your
job and moved to the woods

968
00:51:29,500 --> 00:51:31,743
and wrote poetry.”

969
00:51:37,128 --> 00:51:40,511
[Mary] In all our time together,
we were rarely separated.

970
00:51:40,614 --> 00:51:42,996
Three or four times
I went away to teach,

971
00:51:43,100 --> 00:51:45,136
but usually M would come with
me

972
00:51:45,240 --> 00:51:48,933
and we simply made our home,
temporarily, somewhere else.

973
00:51:49,036 --> 00:51:52,143
And while I always loved the
stillness I found in the fields

974
00:51:52,247 --> 00:51:55,698
and the woods, our house
was a different thing,

975
00:51:55,802 --> 00:51:57,804
and I loved that too.

976
00:51:59,116 --> 00:52:03,775
[woman] Dear Paulus, thank you
for your Christmas greetings.

977
00:52:03,879 --> 00:52:05,398
On Christmas morning, cold

978
00:52:05,501 --> 00:52:09,954
and windy, I ran to the beach
to fetch home an injured gull.

979
00:52:10,057 --> 00:52:12,612
I expected him to slip the
latch

980
00:52:12,715 --> 00:52:14,234
and leave this world
pretty quickly.

981
00:52:14,338 --> 00:52:17,755
He's pretty bashed up.
Yet he is still here.

982
00:52:17,858 --> 00:52:19,895
Can't fly, can't walk.

983
00:52:19,998 --> 00:52:22,139
But utterly responsive

984
00:52:22,242 --> 00:52:25,383
and all together receptive
to our attentions.

985
00:52:27,765 --> 00:52:30,733
[man] "In the morning when I
came downstairs in the
half-dark,

986
00:52:30,837 --> 00:52:33,357
he was eager for me
to lift the shade

987
00:52:33,460 --> 00:52:38,500
and turn him around so
he could begin looking.

988
00:52:38,672 --> 00:52:43,298
He would swing his head slowly
from east to west, and back,

989
00:52:43,401 --> 00:52:46,404
and again, gazing slowly

990
00:52:46,508 --> 00:52:51,409
and deeply. During the
colorful winter sunsets,

991
00:52:51,513 --> 00:52:53,825
the descent of the light,

992
00:52:53,929 --> 00:52:58,036
he also turned his
attention entirely from us,

993
00:52:58,140 --> 00:53:00,073
and into the world."

994
00:53:02,109 --> 00:53:06,735
[Donika] "Dear Paulus, Molly has
a developing lung tumor.

995
00:53:08,254 --> 00:53:10,635
She waits patiently
and without argument.

996
00:53:10,739 --> 00:53:12,499
Molly looks out at the harbor

997
00:53:12,603 --> 00:53:14,467
and says, cheerfully, “I’m
home.

998
00:53:14,570 --> 00:53:17,780
Bring me some toast
and a peach, sliced.”

999
00:53:17,884 --> 00:53:20,680
And with great care I do."

1000
00:53:21,474 --> 00:53:23,027
[♪]

1001
00:53:23,130 --> 00:53:27,997
[John] The feeling was no. I
mean that can't happen to
Molly.

1002
00:53:31,415 --> 00:53:33,900
[David] Molly was suffering
from emphysema

1003
00:53:34,003 --> 00:53:38,215
and was not spending
much time out of bed

1004
00:53:38,318 --> 00:53:42,840
and she said, “This is the
way it is with great age.”

1005
00:53:44,945 --> 00:53:47,672
[Mary] I used to go out at
night with a flashlight

1006
00:53:47,776 --> 00:53:49,226
and sit on a little bench

1007
00:53:49,329 --> 00:53:51,780
right outside the house
and scribble poems.

1008
00:53:52,367 --> 00:53:54,714
I was just so busy
during the day.

1009
00:53:57,234 --> 00:54:01,134
[D. Graham] "The broken part
of the wing hung
now by a single tendon;

1010
00:54:01,238 --> 00:54:02,756
we clipped it away.

1011
00:54:02,860 --> 00:54:06,139
One withered foot literally
fell from him, along

1012
00:54:06,243 --> 00:54:08,348
with the first section
of leg bone,

1013
00:54:08,452 --> 00:54:12,628
so he was a one-winged,
one-legged gull.

1014
00:54:13,457 --> 00:54:18,151
But still patient, attentive."

1015
00:54:18,255 --> 00:54:19,946
[John] I would go over there
every day. I lived

1016
00:54:20,049 --> 00:54:22,466
you know, half a
block away, basically.

1017
00:54:22,569 --> 00:54:23,915
[woman] She did not have
Alzheimer’s,

1018
00:54:24,019 --> 00:54:25,572
but if you can't get
enough oxygen

1019
00:54:25,676 --> 00:54:27,781
in your brain, it’s just
about the same thing.

1020
00:54:27,885 --> 00:54:30,128
I was sitting on
the couch in her room

1021
00:54:30,232 --> 00:54:32,441
with a wonderful friend,
very helpful

1022
00:54:32,545 --> 00:54:35,306
during that period of time,
John Waters, the filmmaker.

1023
00:54:35,410 --> 00:54:39,034
And Molly looked at John
Waters and said, “Where's Mary?

1024
00:54:39,137 --> 00:54:41,036
Where's Mary Oliver?”

1025
00:54:43,038 --> 00:54:45,040
[♪]

1026
00:54:46,697 --> 00:54:49,838
[man] "He was, of course,
a piece of the sky.

1027
00:54:49,941 --> 00:54:54,291
His eyes said so.
This is not fact;

1028
00:54:54,394 --> 00:54:57,742
this is the other part
of knowing something,

1029
00:54:57,846 --> 00:54:59,572
when there is no proof,

1030
00:55:00,124 --> 00:55:04,887
but neither is there any
way toward disbelief.

1031
00:55:04,991 --> 00:55:08,684
Imagine lifting the lid from
a jar and finding it filled

1032
00:55:08,788 --> 00:55:11,411
not with darkness
but with light.

1033
00:55:12,170 --> 00:55:16,830
Bird was like that.
Startling, elegant, alive."

1034
00:55:20,972 --> 00:55:22,974
[♪]

1035
00:55:35,849 --> 00:55:38,645
[Mary] She was style,
she was an old loneliness

1036
00:55:38,749 --> 00:55:41,130
that nothing could
quite wipe away;

1037
00:55:41,234 --> 00:55:44,720
she was vastly knowledgeable
about people, about books,

1038
00:55:44,824 --> 00:55:48,241
about the mind's emotions
and the heart’s.

1039
00:55:48,345 --> 00:55:51,486
She lived sometimes in
a black box of memories

1040
00:55:51,589 --> 00:55:54,834
and unanswerable questions,
and then would come out

1041
00:55:54,937 --> 00:55:58,527
and frolic be feisty, and
bold.

1042
00:56:00,736 --> 00:56:04,637
Many years ago, we did
not have much income.

1043
00:56:04,740 --> 00:56:07,881
We had love and work
and play instead.

1044
00:56:07,985 --> 00:56:09,780
We were talkers.

1045
00:56:10,919 --> 00:56:12,990
It was a 40 year conversation.

1046
00:56:16,925 --> 00:56:18,927
[♪]

1047
00:56:39,119 --> 00:56:41,950
[man] The winters were
they were tough.

1048
00:56:42,778 --> 00:56:45,298
I spent like three or four
winters there over the years,

1049
00:56:45,885 --> 00:56:47,611
but then I couldn't
stay there forever,

1050
00:56:47,714 --> 00:56:49,267
it’s so desolate.

1051
00:56:52,616 --> 00:56:55,584
[Gabrielle] It's also a space
really riddled with elegy.

1052
00:56:55,688 --> 00:56:58,345
There's a lot of
ghosts there too.

1053
00:57:01,694 --> 00:57:03,247
I want to read two poems

1054
00:57:04,835 --> 00:57:09,426
that are about my partner,
Molly Malone Cook,

1055
00:57:09,529 --> 00:57:10,565
or about us.

1056
00:57:11,876 --> 00:57:14,776
"There are these: the blue
skirts

1057
00:57:14,879 --> 00:57:18,952
of the ocean walking in now,
almost to the edge of town,

1058
00:57:19,056 --> 00:57:22,853
and a thousand birds,
in their incredible wings

1059
00:57:22,956 --> 00:57:24,855
which they think nothing of,

1060
00:57:25,269 --> 00:57:31,309
crying out that the day is
long, the fish are plentiful.

1061
00:57:31,413 --> 00:57:35,728
And friends, being as kind
as friends can be, striving

1062
00:57:35,831 --> 00:57:37,454
to lift the darkness.

1063
00:57:37,557 --> 00:57:41,285
Forgive me, Lord of
honeysuckle, of trees,

1064
00:57:41,388 --> 00:57:43,598
of notebooks, of typewriters,

1065
00:57:43,701 --> 00:57:45,323
of music,

1066
00:57:45,427 --> 00:57:50,570
that there are also these:
the lover, the singer,

1067
00:57:50,674 --> 00:57:54,056
the poet asleep in the
shadows."

1068
00:57:55,644 --> 00:57:57,232
[woman] Did she change?

1069
00:57:57,335 --> 00:57:59,199
Well, everybody changes
when their partner

1070
00:57:59,303 --> 00:58:01,236
dies for their whole life.

1071
00:58:01,719 --> 00:58:04,860
Mary spent some time feeling

1072
00:58:07,518 --> 00:58:08,450
a little unmoored,

1073
00:58:08,554 --> 00:58:09,520
I would say.

1074
00:58:12,558 --> 00:58:14,076
[woman] My question is of
a personal nature,

1075
00:58:14,180 --> 00:58:16,423
and please tell me if it's too
personal.

1076
00:58:16,527 --> 00:58:19,150
I too am a grieving widow
of a partner.

1077
00:58:19,254 --> 00:58:21,532
And I didn't know if you felt
comfortable talking at all

1078
00:58:21,636 --> 00:58:23,189
about your grieving process?

1079
00:58:23,292 --> 00:58:25,950
[Mary] Well, first you're
crazy for about a year,

1080
00:58:26,606 --> 00:58:30,265
and do everything in excess.

1081
00:58:30,368 --> 00:58:31,749
You know, I'm not I'm not
over it.

1082
00:58:33,130 --> 00:58:35,063
The amount of alcohol and
cigarettes.

1083
00:58:35,166 --> 00:58:38,515
[John] The drinking was crazy
too, but she was headstrong,

1084
00:58:38,618 --> 00:58:42,415
nobody told Mary what to do
ever, ever, except Molly.

1085
00:58:43,140 --> 00:58:45,142
[church choirs sings]

1086
00:58:51,044 --> 00:58:53,840
[woman] How did her death change
your life?

1087
00:58:53,944 --> 00:58:55,739
[Mary] Very, very lonely.

1088
00:58:55,842 --> 00:58:59,018
I tried the church and that did
not work.

1089
00:58:59,536 --> 00:59:01,779
[woman] Mary did not do well
with groups[laughs]

1090
00:59:02,504 --> 00:59:05,162
She turned to the church in the
direct

1091
00:59:05,265 --> 00:59:06,646
aftermath of Molly's death.

1092
00:59:06,750 --> 00:59:10,029
But it was not a lasting
relationship.

1093
00:59:10,132 --> 00:59:12,687
Joined the church, she
joined the church 'cause she was

1094
00:59:12,790 --> 00:59:15,621
after the woman preacher.

1095
00:59:16,691 --> 00:59:17,968
That's why she joined the
church.

1096
00:59:18,071 --> 00:59:20,142
And the poor preacher
thought she was saving a soul

1097
00:59:20,246 --> 00:59:21,903
of a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet

1098
00:59:22,006 --> 00:59:24,008
and then realized she
had the hots for her.

1099
00:59:24,112 --> 00:59:26,873
That's what happened.
Everybody knows that.

1100
00:59:26,977 --> 00:59:31,153
[C. Stevens] This is from a
letter to her friend, the poet
Pat Fargnoli.

1101
00:59:31,257 --> 00:59:33,535
"Dear Pat, exhaustion leads one

1102
00:59:33,639 --> 00:59:36,814
to unexpected places and I'm
going to A.A.

1103
00:59:37,504 --> 00:59:39,472
Do you know anything about
that?

1104
00:59:39,990 --> 00:59:43,683
Many people show up that
I wouldn't have expected.

1105
00:59:43,787 --> 00:59:48,308
Not that many people here
in town would've expected me.

1106
00:59:48,412 --> 00:59:50,172
Lesson in humility."

1107
00:59:50,621 --> 00:59:52,554
People in the program here in
Provincetown

1108
00:59:52,658 --> 00:59:53,831
all knew who she was.

1109
00:59:53,935 --> 00:59:56,696
But anonymity is anonymity.

1110
00:59:58,318 --> 01:00:01,563
But then I, I don't know what
happened.

1111
01:00:01,667 --> 01:00:03,945
She stopped coming to the
meetings.

1112
01:00:04,704 --> 01:00:06,499
She made startling choices

1113
01:00:06,603 --> 01:00:11,780
how to follow up on Molly,
who was untoppable, in my book.

1114
01:00:11,884 --> 01:00:15,059
Molly had really been the
guardian at the gate for

1115
01:00:15,163 --> 01:00:18,718
so many years, and she
protected Mary's solitude,

1116
01:00:18,822 --> 01:00:22,342
protected her from
invasive sides of fame.

1117
01:00:22,929 --> 01:00:24,517
[man] She went through a hard
time

1118
01:00:24,621 --> 01:00:28,694
and she looked around for
someone to be a lover.

1119
01:00:28,797 --> 01:00:31,351
That was when Anne
started coming around

1120
01:00:32,698 --> 01:00:35,493
Right from the beginning,
everyone in town who was part

1121
01:00:35,597 --> 01:00:39,118
of the A.A. program, who
knew Mary's situation

1122
01:00:39,221 --> 01:00:43,467
and knew Anne, was saying
“This is not good.”

1123
01:00:44,675 --> 01:00:48,058
[woman] It was a bad vibe.
Molly, I do think built a life
with,

1124
01:00:48,161 --> 01:00:49,404
but also for her.

1125
01:00:49,507 --> 01:00:52,372
And that was not my sense
about Anne. It really wasn't.

1126
01:00:52,476 --> 01:00:55,203
And I think that in that
way Mary is also a good

1127
01:00:55,306 --> 01:00:56,791
cautionary tale.

1128
01:00:56,894 --> 01:01:00,208
You can be the most
famous poet in the world.

1129
01:01:00,311 --> 01:01:02,037
Everybody can love your poems,

1130
01:01:02,141 --> 01:01:03,521
and you can be involved with
someone

1131
01:01:03,625 --> 01:01:05,385
who's really bad for you.

1132
01:01:05,489 --> 01:01:07,802
You could hear the truck
coming down the road, it was

1133
01:01:07,905 --> 01:01:12,738
Anne wanted to
have a house in Florida.

1134
01:01:12,841 --> 01:01:17,087
So I flew out and I spent
maybe a week with Mary.

1135
01:01:17,190 --> 01:01:19,227
We were packing, you know,

1136
01:01:19,330 --> 01:01:22,782
and I couldn't read her
emotionally.

1137
01:01:22,886 --> 01:01:25,302
She was resolute.

1138
01:01:25,405 --> 01:01:27,753
I did not see any joy.

1139
01:01:28,754 --> 01:01:32,067
But I, I don't want to try to
speak about them too much.

1140
01:01:36,140 --> 01:01:37,555
[Frank] Very much so. We
talked about it a lot.

1141
01:01:37,659 --> 01:01:40,489
As a matter of fact, some of
our later conversations

1142
01:01:40,593 --> 01:01:44,701
down in Florida, she said,
“I made a big mistake.”

1143
01:01:44,804 --> 01:01:48,843
I don't know that she regretted
it. I think she missed it.

1144
01:01:50,430 --> 01:01:52,916
[C. Steven] Mary wrote
in a book of prose,

1145
01:01:53,019 --> 01:01:55,677
"I don't know whether I'm
going to heaven or hell,

1146
01:01:56,540 --> 01:02:01,372
but I've been, I've been in
heaven for the last 50 years.

1147
01:02:01,476 --> 01:02:02,580
Thank you Provincetown."

1148
01:02:07,654 --> 01:02:09,656
[melancholy piano music]

1149
01:02:43,518 --> 01:02:46,038
[man] That was one of my
frustrations with Mary's poems.

1150
01:02:46,141 --> 01:02:48,454
She was just presenting
herself in the light.

1151
01:02:48,557 --> 01:02:51,077
Everyone's entitled to reveal
what they want to reveal,

1152
01:02:51,181 --> 01:02:52,423
but not acknowledging

1153
01:02:52,527 --> 01:02:55,599
or wrestling with one's own
shadow, feels somehow false.

1154
01:02:55,702 --> 01:02:57,394
Like it's not a full picture,

1155
01:02:57,497 --> 01:02:59,499
of a life.

1156
01:03:00,535 --> 01:03:02,537
[♪]

1157
01:03:03,641 --> 01:03:08,681
[Mary] My father, for example,
who was young once

1158
01:03:08,785 --> 01:03:13,479
and blue-eyed, returns
on the darkest of nights

1159
01:03:13,582 --> 01:03:17,828
to the porch and knocks
wildly at the door,

1160
01:03:19,519 --> 01:03:23,178
and if I answer,
I must be prepared

1161
01:03:23,282 --> 01:03:26,768
for his waxy face,
for his lower lip

1162
01:03:26,872 --> 01:03:29,012
swollen with bitterness.

1163
01:03:29,736 --> 01:03:33,879
And so, for a long time,
I did not answer,

1164
01:03:34,845 --> 01:03:41,265
but slept fitfully between
his hours of rapping.

1165
01:03:41,369 --> 01:03:44,061
[Donika] One of the things
that's really hard about
writing

1166
01:03:44,165 --> 01:03:46,650
about traumatic
experiences, is that

1167
01:03:46,753 --> 01:03:48,065
you have to look at it.

1168
01:03:48,169 --> 01:03:50,999
And if one is a poet like
Mary Oliver, you have

1169
01:03:51,103 --> 01:03:54,140
to go in earnestly
to look at it.

1170
01:03:54,244 --> 01:03:56,729
I do know from my
own experience that

1171
01:03:56,833 --> 01:03:59,732
that pressure does
become inexorable.

1172
01:03:59,836 --> 01:04:01,976
You know, you can sort
of have your defenses up

1173
01:04:02,079 --> 01:04:04,599
and at a certain point, you know

1174
01:04:04,702 --> 01:04:06,843
it comes calling, it's due.

1175
01:04:08,603 --> 01:04:10,605
[♪]

1176
01:04:13,919 --> 01:04:16,714
[Mary] But finally there came
the night when I rose out

1177
01:04:16,818 --> 01:04:19,786
of my sheets and
stumbled down the hall.

1178
01:04:21,064 --> 01:04:22,306
The door fell open

1179
01:04:22,410 --> 01:04:27,311
and I knew I was saved
and could bear him,

1180
01:04:27,415 --> 01:04:31,868
pathetic and hollow,
with even the least of his

1181
01:04:31,971 --> 01:04:36,873
dreams frozen inside him,
and the meanness gone.

1182
01:04:40,221 --> 01:04:44,294
[Ariana] There's something about
art. It takes a lot of energy.

1183
01:04:44,397 --> 01:04:48,229
And some of that energy,
unfortunately, is from

1184
01:04:48,332 --> 01:04:50,231
wild suffering.

1185
01:04:50,334 --> 01:04:52,992
That energy pushes something

1186
01:04:53,096 --> 01:04:55,236
through a person into the world.

1187
01:04:56,099 --> 01:04:59,205
[♪]

1188
01:04:59,309 --> 01:05:02,415
[Mary] And I greeted him and
asked him into the house,

1189
01:05:03,589 --> 01:05:05,315
and lit the lamp,

1190
01:05:05,418 --> 01:05:10,285
and looked into his blank eyes
in which at last

1191
01:05:10,389 --> 01:05:12,701
I saw what a child must love,

1192
01:05:13,840 --> 01:05:18,328
I saw what love might have done
had we loved in time.

1193
01:05:22,539 --> 01:05:24,541
[♪]

1194
01:05:28,855 --> 01:05:30,788
[Maria] Here's how I first met
Mary:

1195
01:05:30,892 --> 01:05:32,756
When I was First Lady
in California,

1196
01:05:32,859 --> 01:05:34,378
I kept trying to get her to
come

1197
01:05:34,482 --> 01:05:37,692
and speak at this women's
conference that I was doing.

1198
01:05:37,795 --> 01:05:40,626
I had discovered her,
like anybody discovers her

1199
01:05:40,729 --> 01:05:42,317
through her poetry.

1200
01:05:42,421 --> 01:05:44,388
And then I started
hounding her to come

1201
01:05:44,492 --> 01:05:46,114
to the women's conference.

1202
01:05:46,218 --> 01:05:49,221
Every time I would call her,
she would say, “No.”

1203
01:05:49,324 --> 01:05:50,429
I said to her, “Look, you know,

1204
01:05:50,532 --> 01:05:52,672
‘The Journey’
just upended my life.

1205
01:05:52,776 --> 01:05:54,709
It's the most incredible
thing I ever read.

1206
01:05:54,812 --> 01:05:56,090
My life has never
been the same.”

1207
01:05:56,193 --> 01:05:57,505
And she was like, “So?”

1208
01:05:57,608 --> 01:05:59,300
Then I'd ask her again.

1209
01:05:59,403 --> 01:06:01,578
I was like, but Mary,
“I guarantee you'll sell

1210
01:06:01,681 --> 01:06:02,648
30,000 books.”

1211
01:06:02,751 --> 01:06:05,237
She said, “I don't care. No!”

1212
01:06:05,340 --> 01:06:08,136
And she always just said
to me, “I don't travel,

1213
01:06:08,240 --> 01:06:09,620
I don't leave home.

1214
01:06:09,724 --> 01:06:12,796
I don't speak in conferences.
I don't do that.”

1215
01:06:12,899 --> 01:06:15,074
And I said, ‘Yes you do.
Yes, you can do that.”

1216
01:06:15,178 --> 01:06:19,665
I think I spent six years
trying to get her to come.

1217
01:06:19,768 --> 01:06:22,599
I know Mary Oliver's
poems very well.

1218
01:06:22,702 --> 01:06:25,050
But on the night before
my cancer surgery,

1219
01:06:25,947 --> 01:06:29,468
my dear friend asked me
to pick a poem

1220
01:06:29,571 --> 01:06:30,987
out of her deck of poem cards

1221
01:06:31,090 --> 01:06:34,024
that would be the guide
for my operation.

1222
01:06:35,129 --> 01:06:37,200
And the card was “The Journey.”

1223
01:06:38,787 --> 01:06:40,720
And I thought I knew this poem.

1224
01:06:42,101 --> 01:06:47,072
The first day I came out
of my cocoon of cancer,

1225
01:06:47,555 --> 01:06:50,868
I spoke at this huge mega
conference in California.

1226
01:06:51,766 --> 01:06:52,939
I was still bald.

1227
01:06:53,078 --> 01:06:56,736
I had just finished my last
chemo and I had agreed to speak.

1228
01:06:56,840 --> 01:06:58,359
And I get there
and there's 20,000 people

1229
01:06:58,462 --> 01:06:59,774
and I'm like, what am I doing?

1230
01:07:01,120 --> 01:07:03,881
And I just got up and I
gave a speech about cancer

1231
01:07:03,985 --> 01:07:05,711
and about sexual abuse

1232
01:07:05,814 --> 01:07:08,162
and about the journey of
what the cancer had done.

1233
01:07:08,265 --> 01:07:12,028
And when I walked off stage,
I was walking downstairs and

1234
01:07:12,131 --> 01:07:15,928
I saw this woman walking up
towards me who was weeping

1235
01:07:16,032 --> 01:07:17,309
and it was Mary Oliver.

1236
01:07:18,172 --> 01:07:21,451
And she threw her arms around
me and she said, “Thank you.”

1237
01:07:21,554 --> 01:07:25,627
I was like, “No, thank you!
You set me on my path.

1238
01:07:25,731 --> 01:07:28,837
Like, you were
part of me living.”

1239
01:07:28,941 --> 01:07:32,082
And she goes, “No, no, no.
You have set me on a path.”

1240
01:07:32,703 --> 01:07:34,809
[♪]

1241
01:07:35,051 --> 01:07:37,570
[Maria] If I close my eyes and
think about that day,

1242
01:07:38,985 --> 01:07:41,126
there was just so much
laughter.

1243
01:07:41,229 --> 01:07:43,507
I had developed
a friendship with her.

1244
01:07:51,688 --> 01:07:53,310
Oh my God, look, look,

1245
01:07:53,414 --> 01:07:55,795
I would've walked right
under this and by it.

1246
01:07:55,899 --> 01:07:57,073
[Mary] I’m sure people do.

1247
01:07:57,176 --> 01:07:59,385
How do you know she's not dead?

1248
01:08:05,288 --> 01:08:07,152
[man] Maria, tell us where we
are?

1249
01:08:07,255 --> 01:08:09,119
Well, we're in the
middle of the woods.

1250
01:08:09,844 --> 01:08:14,918
I was the guest editor of this
“O Magazine” edition on poetry

1251
01:08:15,021 --> 01:08:17,990
and she was the poet
that I admired the most.

1252
01:08:18,094 --> 01:08:21,097
And I wanted to interview
her for the magazine.

1253
01:08:21,200 --> 01:08:23,582
I'm Maria Shriver,
and I'm standing here

1254
01:08:23,685 --> 01:08:26,343
with the legendary Mary Oliver.

1255
01:08:26,447 --> 01:08:28,966
So I flew down to Florida
where she was living.

1256
01:08:29,070 --> 01:08:30,071
[man] That's great, Mary.

1257
01:08:30,416 --> 01:08:31,797
-[camera clicking]
-Gorgeous.

1258
01:08:32,280 --> 01:08:34,593
[Mary] Ooh, what a shame
the weather is like this.

1259
01:08:35,214 --> 01:08:38,183
We could be in
Provincetown, right?

1260
01:08:44,016 --> 01:08:45,742
I'm going to have
to smoke a cigarette.

1261
01:08:45,845 --> 01:08:48,054
Okay, then we can pause.
[laughter]

1262
01:08:48,745 --> 01:08:50,885
I felt that she was very
comfortable with me,

1263
01:08:50,988 --> 01:08:54,199
which is perhaps why
she said what she said.

1264
01:08:54,302 --> 01:08:56,822
[Maria] And then you started
this new book of yours.

1265
01:08:56,925 --> 01:09:00,653
“What can I say that I have
not said before?”
-Yeah.

1266
01:09:00,757 --> 01:09:02,828
Is that something that
you worry about?

1267
01:09:02,931 --> 01:09:07,004
And I don't even think she
probably thought it through.

1268
01:09:07,108 --> 01:09:08,420
I want to be a little braver

1269
01:09:08,523 --> 01:09:13,666
and more honest about
my own life and -and -um -

1270
01:09:14,460 --> 01:09:16,635
difficulties there.

1271
01:09:16,738 --> 01:09:18,706
And you know,
I was sexually abused.

1272
01:09:18,809 --> 01:09:20,777
There's a lot of damage.
You know

1273
01:09:20,880 --> 01:09:23,228
that's the first time I've
ever said that out loud.

1274
01:09:23,331 --> 01:09:24,850
But that's, you know that’s -

1275
01:09:24,953 --> 01:09:26,092
Tell me about that.

1276
01:09:26,196 --> 01:09:27,163
Well, that's why I wanted

1277
01:09:27,266 --> 01:09:29,026
to be invisible, I'm sure.

1278
01:09:29,475 --> 01:09:31,408
I had been interviewing
people at that point

1279
01:09:31,512 --> 01:09:32,685
for 30, 40 years.

1280
01:09:32,789 --> 01:09:37,103
So I knew well enough not
to go, “Oh my God, what?!”

1281
01:09:37,207 --> 01:09:40,176
-But I was
-You were sexually
abused as a child?

1282
01:09:40,279 --> 01:09:41,349
Very, very little,

1283
01:09:41,453 --> 01:09:44,318
and it wasn't until I was
in my forties that I

1284
01:09:44,421 --> 01:09:45,767
was able to figure out that

1285
01:09:45,871 --> 01:09:46,872
it wasn't a giant.

1286
01:09:46,975 --> 01:09:48,701
I was very little.

1287
01:09:50,427 --> 01:09:52,395
[♪]

1288
01:09:54,328 --> 01:09:56,468
[Mary] Children forget. I
mean, they don't forget,

1289
01:09:56,571 --> 01:09:58,677
but they forget the details.

1290
01:09:58,780 --> 01:10:01,473
They just don’t know why they
have nightmares all the time.

1291
01:10:02,059 --> 01:10:03,923
Just think about
that, how scary that is,

1292
01:10:04,027 --> 01:10:05,684
that your body is going
through something

1293
01:10:05,787 --> 01:10:08,894
that you can't even remember.
When you're young,

1294
01:10:08,997 --> 01:10:11,241
you block it out, particularly
if it's your father,

1295
01:10:11,345 --> 01:10:12,656
because you can't remember.

1296
01:10:13,485 --> 01:10:16,246
It's so long term,
it's so multi-layered.

1297
01:10:18,421 --> 01:10:20,492
[Mary] It would've been
a very different life.

1298
01:10:20,595 --> 01:10:23,667
Whether I would've written
poetry or not, who knows?

1299
01:10:24,012 --> 01:10:28,189
But I did find the
entire world, in looking

1300
01:10:28,293 --> 01:10:29,535
for something.

1301
01:10:29,639 --> 01:10:31,779
I got saved by poetry

1302
01:10:31,882 --> 01:10:34,920
and I got saved by the
beauty of the world.

1303
01:10:37,336 --> 01:10:39,304
[♪]

1304
01:10:42,617 --> 01:10:45,482
[V] Mary was very clear that
it wasn't going to define her.

1305
01:10:45,586 --> 01:10:47,381
The fact that she really
didn't address it till her

1306
01:10:47,484 --> 01:10:51,281
seventies, she'd already
determined who Mary Oliver was.

1307
01:10:51,385 --> 01:10:52,489
Mary, I always tell you

1308
01:10:52,593 --> 01:10:56,562
that “The Journey” is my
all time favorite poem.

1309
01:10:56,666 --> 01:10:59,772
It's hard to craft your
own journey when voices are

1310
01:10:59,876 --> 01:11:01,360
trying to pull you back.

1311
01:11:02,396 --> 01:11:04,915
I read it as though it
had been written for me,

1312
01:11:05,019 --> 01:11:09,679
and I'm sure millions
of other people did too.

1313
01:11:09,782 --> 01:11:13,510
[woman] Like, uh, many of your
fans, sorry, my voice is a
little -

1314
01:11:13,614 --> 01:11:14,649
[voice falters]

1315
01:11:15,340 --> 01:11:17,790
The one poem that
I was really hoping you

1316
01:11:17,894 --> 01:11:21,277
might read was “The Journey,”
which means a lot

1317
01:11:21,380 --> 01:11:26,212
to my family and my brother
who couldn't be here, but who -

1318
01:11:26,316 --> 01:11:27,317
-[Mary] I will read it.
-[woman] Thank you.

1319
01:11:27,490 --> 01:11:30,424
[Mary] Thank you for asking.
Of course, I will.

1320
01:11:33,012 --> 01:11:36,084
[Mary] "One day you finally knew
what you had to do,

1321
01:11:36,188 --> 01:11:39,225
and began, though the voices

1322
01:11:39,329 --> 01:11:43,264
around you kept shouting
their bad advice

1323
01:11:43,368 --> 01:11:46,094
though the whole house
began to tremble

1324
01:11:46,198 --> 01:11:50,892
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles. “Mend my life!”

1325
01:11:50,996 --> 01:11:52,894
each voice cried."

1326
01:11:54,033 --> 01:11:58,383
[Oprah] "But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,

1327
01:11:58,486 --> 01:12:01,075
though the wind pried with its
stiff fingers at the very

1328
01:12:01,178 --> 01:12:05,355
foundations, though their
melancholy was terrible.

1329
01:12:06,632 --> 01:12:10,464
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,

1330
01:12:11,361 --> 01:12:14,606
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

1331
01:12:15,745 --> 01:12:19,783
But little by little, as you
left their voices behind,

1332
01:12:20,888 --> 01:12:25,099
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,

1333
01:12:25,202 --> 01:12:28,792
and there was a new voice
which you slowly

1334
01:12:28,896 --> 01:12:33,694
recognized as your own,
that kept you company

1335
01:12:33,797 --> 01:12:37,283
as you strode deeper and deeper

1336
01:12:37,387 --> 01:12:40,079
into the world,

1337
01:12:40,183 --> 01:12:43,876
determined to do
the only thing you could do

1338
01:12:43,980 --> 01:12:49,399
determined to save
the only life you could save."

1339
01:12:51,021 --> 01:12:53,058
[♪]

1340
01:12:53,955 --> 01:12:57,096
[woman] You know, she said, “I
had two choices when Molly
died.”

1341
01:12:57,856 --> 01:13:00,686
[Mary] I would either go buy a
little cabin in the woods

1342
01:13:00,790 --> 01:13:03,620
and go inside with all
my books, write poems,

1343
01:13:03,724 --> 01:13:05,864
and see nobody and
shut the door, and

1344
01:13:05,967 --> 01:13:08,487
that would be that. Or I said

1345
01:13:08,591 --> 01:13:10,627
I will unlock all the doors.

1346
01:13:11,904 --> 01:13:16,046
[woman] And so she really
accelerates her public readings
in the

1347
01:13:16,150 --> 01:13:17,393
wake of Molly's death.

1348
01:13:18,842 --> 01:13:19,981
[V] It is a wild

1349
01:13:20,085 --> 01:13:22,846
and precious privilege to
introduce to you tonight

1350
01:13:22,950 --> 01:13:26,125
for a singular
and heartfelt experience.

1351
01:13:26,229 --> 01:13:28,300
Please welcome our
national treasure

1352
01:13:28,404 --> 01:13:31,268
and the guardian of Earth,
Mary Oliver.

1353
01:13:31,372 --> 01:13:33,339
[applause]

1354
01:13:33,443 --> 01:13:35,583
You know, she never became
impossible to criticize,

1355
01:13:35,687 --> 01:13:37,620
but she became super
impossible to ignore.

1356
01:13:37,723 --> 01:13:39,138
[loud applause]

1357
01:13:39,242 --> 01:13:40,277
Thank you.

1358
01:13:40,795 --> 01:13:44,212
-[loud applause]
-Thank you

1359
01:13:44,350 --> 01:13:47,215
[David] Here you have
someone who is very close

1360
01:13:47,319 --> 01:13:51,461
to living a hermit's
life, who then goes out

1361
01:13:51,565 --> 01:13:54,533
to these auditoriums
and fills them up.

1362
01:13:55,361 --> 01:14:00,021
Mary became a kind of icon for
the hermit within each of us.

1363
01:14:01,437 --> 01:14:04,750
You know, Mary was a
genuinely humble person,

1364
01:14:04,854 --> 01:14:07,097
and so this is a little
bit difficult to say,

1365
01:14:07,201 --> 01:14:10,894
but I don't think that she was
surprised by her popularity.

1366
01:14:10,998 --> 01:14:13,759
People who don't know
anything about poetry

1367
01:14:14,622 --> 01:14:16,762
and who don't need to know

1368
01:14:16,866 --> 01:14:21,595
when they are in a
state of being torn open

1369
01:14:21,698 --> 01:14:25,806
by life, and they need
someone to speak to

1370
01:14:25,909 --> 01:14:29,948
that state of the soul,
it's Mary Oliver.

1371
01:14:31,605 --> 01:14:35,056
[Lucy] What is the meaning of
life? Where can I go for
solace?

1372
01:14:35,160 --> 01:14:37,162
How do I find happiness?

1373
01:14:37,265 --> 01:14:40,234
How do I cope with sorrow?

1374
01:14:40,337 --> 01:14:41,753
It's a Mary Oliver poem

1375
01:14:41,856 --> 01:14:44,514
that people find
themselves held by

1376
01:14:44,618 --> 01:14:47,586
and they don't need a critic
to explain to them why.

1377
01:14:48,242 --> 01:14:49,726
[upbeat, jazzy music]

1378
01:14:55,905 --> 01:14:57,562
[man] Mary Oliver's first
book of poems

1379
01:14:57,665 --> 01:15:00,910
was reviewed in this
publication by James Dickey,

1380
01:15:01,013 --> 01:15:02,843
who dumped all over it.

1381
01:15:02,946 --> 01:15:05,086
The last laugh
has been Oliver’s.

1382
01:15:05,190 --> 01:15:07,399
"Forty-two years after Dickey's
review,

1383
01:15:07,503 --> 01:15:11,334
She is far and away this
country's bestselling poet."

1384
01:15:11,437 --> 01:15:13,785
Dwight Garner,
The New York Times.

1385
01:15:13,888 --> 01:15:17,133
The public at that point
was also really hungry

1386
01:15:17,236 --> 01:15:18,617
to know about her.

1387
01:15:18,721 --> 01:15:21,171
[woman] What about you
would surprise us?

1388
01:15:21,275 --> 01:15:24,381
[Mary] I don't -I don't know.
I was pretty sad yesterday

1389
01:15:24,485 --> 01:15:26,452
after the football game.

1390
01:15:26,556 --> 01:15:29,421
[TV announcer] The Giants have
won the Super Bowl.

1391
01:15:29,525 --> 01:15:31,527
[audience laughter, applause]

1392
01:15:33,839 --> 01:15:37,084
[woman] That was surprising.

1393
01:15:37,360 --> 01:15:41,882
You have said
what a poem is not.

1394
01:15:42,468 --> 01:15:45,437
You say, “A poem
is not the world.”

1395
01:15:46,024 --> 01:15:49,234
Oh, I'm changing my
ideas about that.

1396
01:15:49,337 --> 01:15:52,133
I'm in trouble. I went a little
crazy at one reading

1397
01:15:52,237 --> 01:15:53,410
a few months ago and

1398
01:15:53,514 --> 01:15:57,207
started shouting
that I wanted my poems

1399
01:15:57,311 --> 01:15:58,726
to be inflammatory.

1400
01:15:58,830 --> 01:16:01,177
We're all better people
for literature.

1401
01:16:01,280 --> 01:16:03,075
Meanwhile, the world burns.

1402
01:16:03,179 --> 01:16:06,665
[Mary] Our enjoyment of the
natural world is, in the long
run,

1403
01:16:06,769 --> 01:16:08,011
political.

1404
01:16:10,255 --> 01:16:12,637
The poem that I
think about the most is,

1405
01:16:12,740 --> 01:16:15,847
“Was it Necessary to Do It?"

1406
01:16:15,950 --> 01:16:18,884
And it's a poem about
an ant being stepped on.

1407
01:16:20,196 --> 01:16:23,475
"I tell you
that ant is very alive!

1408
01:16:23,579 --> 01:16:26,927
Look at how he fusses
at being stepped on."

1409
01:16:27,030 --> 01:16:30,206
The reason this poem
matters so much to me

1410
01:16:30,309 --> 01:16:33,968
is because so many
people that I know,

1411
01:16:34,072 --> 01:16:36,246
know what it is to be the ant.

1412
01:16:37,558 --> 01:16:39,249
Whether it's people of
color in this country,

1413
01:16:39,353 --> 01:16:42,736
whether it's women, whether
it's folks from the LGBTQIA+

1414
01:16:42,839 --> 01:16:45,083
community, whether
it's disabled people,

1415
01:16:45,186 --> 01:16:49,570
and the assumption is that
either the ant does not exist

1416
01:16:49,674 --> 01:16:56,197
because it is not seen, or
that the ant is easy to kill.

1417
01:16:56,301 --> 01:16:58,855
And so what she does in the
poem is says, you can tell by

1418
01:16:58,959 --> 01:17:01,582
how the ant fusses
at being stepped on,

1419
01:17:01,686 --> 01:17:03,308
which means the ant is not dead.

1420
01:17:03,411 --> 01:17:05,517
The ant is fighting for its
life.

1421
01:17:07,623 --> 01:17:09,348
[Mary] The thing I'm most
worried about actually is

1422
01:17:09,452 --> 01:17:14,388
what I consider a most
serious ongoing devastation

1423
01:17:14,491 --> 01:17:18,150
of the Earth, which we need
both spiritually and materially

1424
01:17:18,254 --> 01:17:19,945
and we're not dealing with it.

1425
01:17:20,049 --> 01:17:21,464
I worry about little children.

1426
01:17:23,086 --> 01:17:25,641
Are they going to know what
the Earth looked like?

1427
01:17:27,712 --> 01:17:29,679
[♪]

1428
01:17:31,819 --> 01:17:34,373
[David] As I was leaving,
she kind of blew kisses

1429
01:17:34,477 --> 01:17:38,136
and said, “I love you”
and goodbye.

1430
01:17:38,239 --> 01:17:41,795
But the last thing that
she said was, “No moping.

1431
01:17:41,898 --> 01:17:43,555
No moping!” To me.

1432
01:17:43,659 --> 01:17:45,902
You could look at every
poem that she's written

1433
01:17:46,006 --> 01:17:49,526
and say, is the
underlying message here

1434
01:17:49,630 --> 01:17:51,563
“No moping”?

1435
01:17:51,667 --> 01:17:54,704
“Meanwhile the world goes on.”

1436
01:17:54,808 --> 01:17:56,982
Meanwhile,
everything is happening.

1437
01:17:57,086 --> 01:17:59,019
Meanwhile, the wild geese.

1438
01:18:00,745 --> 01:18:03,161
[Mary] "You do not have to be
good.

1439
01:18:03,264 --> 01:18:06,716
You do not have to walk on
your knees for a hundred miles

1440
01:18:06,820 --> 01:18:09,029
through the desert, repenting.

1441
01:18:10,478 --> 01:18:14,068
You only have to let the
soft animal of your body

1442
01:18:14,172 --> 01:18:16,484
love what it loves.

1443
01:18:16,588 --> 01:18:18,763
Tell me about despair,

1444
01:18:18,866 --> 01:18:22,594
yours, and I will tell you
mine.

1445
01:18:23,491 --> 01:18:26,391
Meanwhile the world goes on.

1446
01:18:26,494 --> 01:18:27,841
Meanwhile the sun

1447
01:18:27,944 --> 01:18:29,221
and the clear pebbles

1448
01:18:29,325 --> 01:18:32,915
of the rain are moving
across the landscapes,

1449
01:18:33,018 --> 01:18:34,123
over the prairies

1450
01:18:34,226 --> 01:18:38,748
and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.

1451
01:18:38,852 --> 01:18:42,787
Meanwhile the wild geese,
high in the clean blue air,

1452
01:18:42,890 --> 01:18:44,720
are heading home again.

1453
01:18:46,963 --> 01:18:52,106
Whoever you are,
no matter how lonely,

1454
01:18:52,210 --> 01:18:56,317
the world offers itself
to your imagination,

1455
01:18:56,421 --> 01:19:01,184
calls to you like the wild
geese harsh and exciting

1456
01:19:01,288 --> 01:19:04,809
over and over
announcing your place

1457
01:19:04,912 --> 01:19:07,328
in the family of things."

1458
01:19:11,091 --> 01:19:13,679
You can read it a hundred times

1459
01:19:13,783 --> 01:19:15,992
and hear it differently
every time.

1460
01:19:16,096 --> 01:19:19,582
Who is the you? And what
does good even mean?

1461
01:19:23,172 --> 01:19:26,727
It's a wild goose.
It’s the wild geese.

1462
01:19:27,245 --> 01:19:29,281
We think of wild as chaotic,

1463
01:19:29,385 --> 01:19:32,560
but wild is harmonious
with the wilderness

1464
01:19:32,664 --> 01:19:34,459
which is where we all came
from.

1465
01:19:34,562 --> 01:19:36,081
We're born wild.

1466
01:19:36,185 --> 01:19:39,464
[Lucy] I think people feel a lot
of pressure to be good

1467
01:19:39,567 --> 01:19:41,811
by external metrics.

1468
01:19:41,915 --> 01:19:44,158
One of the things she
learned by being dedicated

1469
01:19:44,262 --> 01:19:48,991
to nature was that that
question doesn't follow

1470
01:19:49,094 --> 01:19:51,821
deer and it doesn't follow bees.

1471
01:19:51,925 --> 01:19:54,168
Why are we putting
this on ourselves?

1472
01:19:54,962 --> 01:19:56,964
[♪]

1473
01:19:57,585 --> 01:19:59,208
[Mary] How many people here
love dogs?

1474
01:19:59,311 --> 01:20:01,900
-[applause]
-[Mary] Yay. Yay.

1475
01:20:05,214 --> 01:20:08,804
Aren't they something!
Who needs language?

1476
01:20:10,529 --> 01:20:12,531
[♪]

1477
01:20:23,611 --> 01:20:25,406
[Stephen] What I get from
her poetry is a sense

1478
01:20:25,510 --> 01:20:28,444
that you belong
here in this world

1479
01:20:28,547 --> 01:20:30,653
and the evidence is how
you are compelled

1480
01:20:30,756 --> 01:20:31,792
by the beauty of it.

1481
01:20:32,793 --> 01:20:37,418
That beauty of the world
is an accusation

1482
01:20:37,522 --> 01:20:40,559
that you are withholding
your own beauty,

1483
01:20:40,663 --> 01:20:42,389
by being good

1484
01:20:42,492 --> 01:20:45,012
as opposed to being yourself.

1485
01:20:47,014 --> 01:20:48,982
[♪]

1486
01:20:58,301 --> 01:21:01,235
[Gabrielle] Mary kept finding
the light

1487
01:21:01,339 --> 01:21:04,342
and realizing she
did not have to be good.

1488
01:21:04,445 --> 01:21:07,241
You could not contain her
any more than you could

1489
01:21:07,345 --> 01:21:09,381
contain the season outside.

1490
01:21:14,835 --> 01:21:16,457
The cycle continues.

1491
01:21:18,839 --> 01:21:20,565
[Mary] The fear of death,

1492
01:21:20,668 --> 01:21:22,291
as long as death is understood

1493
01:21:22,394 --> 01:21:25,535
to be a cessation,
it's quite logical.

1494
01:21:25,639 --> 01:21:28,331
But if one understands it
to be a change,

1495
01:21:28,435 --> 01:21:30,713
then it becomes
quite interesting.

1496
01:21:32,232 --> 01:21:34,234
[♪]

1497
01:21:37,409 --> 01:21:39,825
[woman] How do you know
when a poem is done?

1498
01:21:40,965 --> 01:21:42,104
[sigh]

1499
01:21:42,898 --> 01:21:46,108
[Mary] Well, I don't know
that you ever know,

1500
01:21:46,211 --> 01:21:49,835
but in some way you have made
a completion of a thought

1501
01:21:49,939 --> 01:21:52,666
or a mood,
or whatever you're doing,

1502
01:21:52,769 --> 01:21:54,357
and it's time to go on.

1503
01:22:01,192 --> 01:22:03,159
[gentle music]

1504
01:22:04,747 --> 01:22:06,300
[man] A cottage of darkness.

1505
01:22:07,232 --> 01:22:10,442
The concept of death is one

1506
01:22:10,546 --> 01:22:13,204
that is so impenetrable,

1507
01:22:13,307 --> 01:22:16,379
but for the poet
to shrink it down

1508
01:22:16,483 --> 01:22:20,936
to a cottage, makes it
something we can emotionally
handle.

1509
01:22:22,868 --> 01:22:26,424
[man] Here's a poem for today
by Mary Oliver entitled

1510
01:22:26,527 --> 01:22:28,150
“When Death Comes.”

1511
01:22:28,978 --> 01:22:32,878
"When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;

1512
01:22:32,982 --> 01:22:34,225
when death comes

1513
01:22:34,328 --> 01:22:37,883
and takes all the bright coins
from his purse to buy me,

1514
01:22:37,987 --> 01:22:39,955
and snaps the purse shut;"

1515
01:22:40,058 --> 01:22:42,233
[Helena] "when death comes
like the measle-pox;

1516
01:22:42,854 --> 01:22:44,994
when death comes like an
iceberg

1517
01:22:45,098 --> 01:22:50,103
between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door

1518
01:22:50,482 --> 01:22:55,522
full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like,

1519
01:22:55,625 --> 01:22:58,870
that cottage of darkness?

1520
01:22:59,319 --> 01:23:03,323
And therefore I look upon
everything as a brotherhood

1521
01:23:04,427 --> 01:23:06,464
and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time

1522
01:23:06,567 --> 01:23:08,293
as no more than an idea,

1523
01:23:09,087 --> 01:23:10,675
and I consider eternity

1524
01:23:10,778 --> 01:23:12,608
as another possibility,

1525
01:23:12,711 --> 01:23:16,888
and I think of each life
as a flower, as common

1526
01:23:16,992 --> 01:23:19,684
as a field daisy,
and as singular,

1527
01:23:20,823 --> 01:23:24,861
and each name
a comfortable music

1528
01:23:24,965 --> 01:23:29,970
in the mouth, tending, as all
music does, toward silence,"

1529
01:23:30,177 --> 01:23:33,284
"and each body a lion of
courage,

1530
01:23:33,387 --> 01:23:38,323
and something precious to
the earth. When it's over,

1531
01:23:38,427 --> 01:23:43,018
I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married

1532
01:23:43,121 --> 01:23:44,778
to amazement.

1533
01:23:44,881 --> 01:23:48,989
I was the bridegroom,
taking the world into my arms."

1534
01:23:50,715 --> 01:23:52,820
[Helena] "When it's over, I
don't want to wonder

1535
01:23:52,924 --> 01:23:57,446
if I have made of my life
something particular, and real.

1536
01:23:57,791 --> 01:24:01,243
I don't want to find myself
sighing and frightened,

1537
01:24:01,346 --> 01:24:03,176
or full of argument.

1538
01:24:04,004 --> 01:24:06,420
I don't want to end up simply

1539
01:24:06,524 --> 01:24:09,354
having visited this world."

1540
01:24:11,667 --> 01:24:13,669
[♪]

1541
01:24:16,879 --> 01:24:21,056
[man] What a preparation, what a
freedom, to not go into fear.

1542
01:24:22,643 --> 01:24:25,094
“Eternity as
another possibility.”

1543
01:24:25,681 --> 01:24:30,065
Some reader, someone is facing
this moment right now

1544
01:24:30,582 --> 01:24:34,517
and I feel as though
there's such consolation

1545
01:24:34,621 --> 01:24:37,796
in thinking about a passage

1546
01:24:39,764 --> 01:24:42,318
and thinking about
this moment right here

1547
01:24:42,422 --> 01:24:45,321
while we are
alive and breathing.

1548
01:24:48,428 --> 01:24:52,156
[news anchor] A major American
poet, Mary Oliver, has died.

1549
01:24:52,259 --> 01:24:56,539
Oliver authored more than 15
poetry and essay collections.

1550
01:24:56,643 --> 01:24:59,473
[man] She died today of lymphoma
at her home in Florida

1551
01:24:59,577 --> 01:25:01,061
at 83 years old.

1552
01:25:01,165 --> 01:25:02,614
[woman] Her work will live on.

1553
01:25:02,718 --> 01:25:05,134
We know she believed we
all will, just as a beloved,

1554
01:25:05,238 --> 01:25:08,793
buried dog will sprout
a rose bush next spring.

1555
01:25:08,896 --> 01:25:12,693
There are these talismanic
artists who, as much

1556
01:25:12,797 --> 01:25:16,007
as they meant to us
while they were alive,

1557
01:25:16,111 --> 01:25:20,115
as they're leaving the planet,
we turn toward the fullness

1558
01:25:20,218 --> 01:25:22,047
of their living in this new
way.

1559
01:25:22,151 --> 01:25:25,603
And we see, oh, you've
offered us a way to be,

1560
01:25:26,466 --> 01:25:28,916
you've never demanded
that we respect you.

1561
01:25:29,020 --> 01:25:31,919
You weren't shoved down
our throats at school.

1562
01:25:32,023 --> 01:25:34,750
You were just there, shining.

1563
01:25:36,648 --> 01:25:39,064
The world is just
waiting waiting

1564
01:25:41,308 --> 01:25:42,827
for you to pay attention.

1565
01:25:43,897 --> 01:25:48,591
Poetry, especially Mary
Oliver’s poetry, invites you

1566
01:25:48,695 --> 01:25:50,386
to pay attention to
the beauty of the world

1567
01:25:50,490 --> 01:25:53,700
and to see in that, you're
not divorced from it.

1568
01:25:54,701 --> 01:25:58,843
You're your own grasshopper.
You know what I mean?

1569
01:25:59,499 --> 01:26:01,673
[man] Mary Oliver was the real
thing.

1570
01:26:01,777 --> 01:26:03,261
A beautiful bohemian,

1571
01:26:03,365 --> 01:26:06,644
a gay woman who didn't
fit in her own minority,

1572
01:26:06,747 --> 01:26:11,166
an unabashed eccentric who
helped me understand poetry.

1573
01:26:11,718 --> 01:26:13,754
[♪]

1574
01:26:14,652 --> 01:26:17,862
There are a lot of stories
that I could tell you

1575
01:26:17,965 --> 01:26:21,279
that you didn't know
to ask me about.

1576
01:26:21,383 --> 01:26:23,454
She was very private

1577
01:26:23,557 --> 01:26:28,010
and I really protect my
conversations with Mary.

1578
01:26:28,113 --> 01:26:30,702
If I thought of something that

1579
01:26:30,806 --> 01:26:32,325
she wouldn't
want me to tell you,

1580
01:26:32,428 --> 01:26:33,843
I wouldn't tell you.

1581
01:26:35,431 --> 01:26:37,019
One more thing:

1582
01:26:37,122 --> 01:26:39,124
when she went into the woods

1583
01:26:39,780 --> 01:26:42,576
during that week when
she was on the lam,

1584
01:26:44,164 --> 01:26:47,823
she met somebody in the woods
whose name was Lenny,

1585
01:26:47,926 --> 01:26:49,790
and he was also on the lam.

1586
01:26:49,894 --> 01:26:54,416
He was like she was
17-year-old, 18-year-old kid.

1587
01:26:54,519 --> 01:26:58,592
Something had happened, he got
into some kind of trouble

1588
01:26:58,696 --> 01:27:01,043
and he was afraid
to go back into town

1589
01:27:01,146 --> 01:27:03,390
and they were there together.

1590
01:27:03,494 --> 01:27:05,875
Two very different people.

1591
01:27:05,979 --> 01:27:10,259
Years later she said, “I wonder
what happened to Lenny?”

1592
01:27:10,363 --> 01:27:12,951
And I said, “You know
Mary, there's a machine

1593
01:27:13,055 --> 01:27:15,609
where we could find
that out fairly quickly.”

1594
01:27:15,713 --> 01:27:19,130
He had died only
a few days before.

1595
01:27:19,234 --> 01:27:23,065
He had gone back to town
and lived his life there.

1596
01:27:23,168 --> 01:27:28,450
He had been in the service.
He had many grandchildren.

1597
01:27:29,209 --> 01:27:31,038
He went back into the world

1598
01:27:31,142 --> 01:27:34,387
after spending that week
in the woods with her.

1599
01:27:34,490 --> 01:27:38,667
And she went off
to live her destiny.

1600
01:27:40,876 --> 01:27:45,260
For Mary, the woods are
neither good nor bad.

1601
01:27:45,363 --> 01:27:49,712
The woods are just the place
where we gain the space

1602
01:27:49,816 --> 01:27:53,406
to consider
what it is that we want.

1603
01:27:54,027 --> 01:27:55,753
[♪]

1604
01:27:55,856 --> 01:27:57,824
[Stephen] My wife sent me
this the other day.

1605
01:27:57,927 --> 01:28:01,276
-We send each other Mary Oliver.
-[woman] Oh, what'd she send?

1606
01:28:01,379 --> 01:28:04,520
I'll show you. She put it on
the family chain. Here it is.

1607
01:28:04,624 --> 01:28:06,764
“Teach the children.”
Do you know this?

1608
01:28:06,867 --> 01:28:10,181
"We don't matter so much,
but the children do.

1609
01:28:10,285 --> 01:28:13,184
Show them daisies
and the pale hepatica.

1610
01:28:13,288 --> 01:28:16,083
Teach them the taste of
sassafras and wintergreen.

1611
01:28:16,187 --> 01:28:18,741
The lives of the blue sailors,
mallow, sunbursts,

1612
01:28:18,845 --> 01:28:20,191
the moccasin flowers

1613
01:28:20,295 --> 01:28:23,539
And the frisky ones inkberry
lamb’s-quarters, blueberries.

1614
01:28:23,643 --> 01:28:24,885
And the aromatic ones

1615
01:28:24,989 --> 01:28:27,440
rosemary, oregano.
Give them peppermint

1616
01:28:27,543 --> 01:28:30,684
to put in their pockets
as they go to school.

1617
01:28:31,892 --> 01:28:33,791
Give them fields and the woods

1618
01:28:33,894 --> 01:28:36,380
and the possibility of the
world salvaged from

1619
01:28:36,483 --> 01:28:38,761
the lords of profit.

1620
01:28:38,865 --> 01:28:41,764
Stand them in the stream,
head them upstream,

1621
01:28:41,868 --> 01:28:45,320
rejoice as they learn to love
the green space they live in,

1622
01:28:45,423 --> 01:28:50,255
its sticks and leaves and then
the silent, beautiful blossoms.

1623
01:28:50,359 --> 01:28:53,017
Attention is the
beginning of devotion."

1624
01:28:57,470 --> 01:28:58,954
She’s pretty good.

1625
01:29:02,233 --> 01:29:04,235
[♪]

1626
01:29:47,589 --> 01:29:49,556
[♪]

1627
01:30:32,254 --> 01:30:34,256
[♪]

1628
01:30:47,890 --> 01:30:49,892
[music ends]