{"id":7052057,"date":"2026-08-30T23:24:01","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T23:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/som2nypost.com\/uncategorized\/was-mary-oliver-a-feminist\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T23:24:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T23:24:01","slug":"was-mary-oliver-a-feminist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/som2nypost.com\/?p=7052057","title":{"rendered":"Was Mary Oliver a Feminist?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A new documentary Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World<\/em> reveals the complicated woman behind the beloved poetry\u2014and the deeply feminist values she embodied, even if she never officially claimed the label.<\/h2>\n
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Poet Mary Oliver speaks during then-California First Lady Maria Shriver\u2019s annual Women\u2019s Conference 2010 on Oct. 26, 2010, at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach. (Kevork Djansezian \/ Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The day Mary Oliver died<\/a>, I was sitting with my lifelong friends in my high school literature class. Nestled in the Sawatch Range in Colorado, we knew nature\u2019s power well. We lived our lives by the snow on the mountain and the eventual rise and fall of the Arkansas river. The world was always beautiful to us because we were fortunate to be raised in a beautiful place. We loved the natural world\u2014Oliver\u2019s poetry reminded us that we belonged in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And now that I live in New York City, I cling to Oliver\u2019s poetry like the muggy east coast summers stick to my skin. Her words remind me that nature exists everywhere. It lies in the pigeons who have never known wildness, in the swans on the East River and the cottonwoods as they turn yellow in the fall and even in the rain as it soaks the seemingly always damp sidewalk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a writer and poet, I am first and foremost a feminist. Oliver never claimed that same title. Whether or not she\u2019d own that title today is more complicated. <\/p>\n

A new documentary\u00a0Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World<\/em>, directed and produced by Sasha Waters, presents Oliver with that often untapped complexity, hoping that more people will read her poetry with the poet behind it in mind.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Our enjoyment of the natural world is, in the long run, political.<\/p>\n

Mary Oliver<\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cParticularly with older women, we kind of want to put them in this box, and Mary won\u2019t stay in the box,\u201d says Waters, who described herself as less of a documentarian and more of an artist.<\/p>\n

From Pinterest boards to classroom walls, Oliver\u2019s words have become popular in a way that most poets could only dream. People have even gone as far as to call her \u201cSaint Mary.\u201d But, Waters urges us to remember that there is a whole woman behind the words.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s also this way in which she becomes a little flattened and one-dimensional through the way that she circulates now,\u201d says Waters. \u201cUnderstanding that she was very much a complicated person and woman until the end of her life is what I hope people take away from her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliver\u2019s explosion of success came later in her life; she won the Pulitzer at 48 and didn\u2019t start to go on tour until her 70s. She drew diverse audiences across the country as people fell in love with her writing.<\/p>\n

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