Fearless Writer: A Profile of Mary Oliver

   "The blossom of the rising moon" is one of my favorite poetry lines, written by an extraordinary woman, Mary Oliver, who grew from being an aspiring teenage writer into a voice that has left her mark on the world. She has inspired many people, young and old, to follow their dreams, and she stands as a great role model. I admire her in many ways: one being her poems, another her interests in nature and, finally, her outlooks on life.
               
   On September 10, 1935, in Cleveland, Ohio, a baby girl was born to parents Edward William Oliver and Helen M. V. Oliver, and they named her Mary. They had no idea that she would grow up to be a brilliant poet, known  worldwide for her nature poetry and her views on life and religion. By the time she became a teenager, Mary knew what she wanted to be: she wanted to be a writer!  She had been influenced by the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay all of her life, and when she graduated high school, she was full of writing ambitions.
       
   Mary went on, attending Ohio State University and Vassar College, but she never graduated. Instead, she continued writing and working on her poetry, and after years of hard work, she published her first book, No Voyage And Other Poems, in 1963, at the age of 28. Since then, she has won many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize, and has published over 10 books of her poetry.
     
   Mrs. Oliver's poems are different from any of the other poems I've read. One reason I like her poems is because they have such a deep root in nature, a root that she's watered and kept growing and blossoming as long as she's been writing. I think it's cool how her poems go so far into the lives of wild animals and plants, showing us how they live and survive.
  
       
   One example of this is her poem "The Swan."  In this poem, the swan is compared to a
white ship filled with flowers and the image seems so real that you could reach out and touch the swan, rustle back the feathers on  its long neck gently.
                                              
   Another reason I like her poems is that many of them have an element of the mind that I can relate to: "Is the soul solid, like iron?/ Or is it tender and breakable like/ the wings of a moth in the beak of an owl?" from the poem "Some Questions You Might Ask." It continues on later, saying, "The face of the moose is as sad/ as the face of Jesus," and soon, she is wondering why humans have a soul and why animals don't, even if they love their children and friends in their own ways.
 
      
   One more reason that I like Mary Oliver and her poetry is that she is fearless in her writing. When she writes, she takes crazy leaps in her poetry. In a poem called "Some Herons," she first describes the preacher, flying in slow motion. Then she begins talking about a Chinese poet far away, staring at the water. Miles and miles away, the preacher is jumping into the water. Then she returns to the old Chinese poet, sitting on the bank of his creek, writing.
  
  
   In conclusion, Mary Oliver is a wonderful poet. If you haven't heard of her, read one of her poems. She's a poet who deserves to be recognized as an American legend.