Although Sasha Waters‘s new documentary Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World isn’t yet widely available (check this link for theater listings), it will start airing on PBS at the end of August.
Notables including friend John Waters (no relation to Sasha), admirer Stephen Colbert, and hater-turned-fan V (formerly Eve Ensler), among others, make important appearances.
Childhood Trauma and Survival
Michael Londra, Arts Fuse: “Her temporary means of escape from a sexually abusive father (described by her in ‘Flare’ as a ‘demon of frustrated dreams’) were long private sojourns into nearby woodlands. It was during these formative years that she first ‘learned to love the earth’ while also discovering and devouring the verse of Whitman and Shelley.”
Matt Zoller Seitz, rogerebert.com: “Her sense of dislocation and disinterest in school originated in sexual abuse by her father. Although that experience can be detected in poems that aren’t officially ‘about’ the abuse, Oliver didn’t openly deal with it until her 1986 collection ‘Dream Work.’ The most quoted poem in that book is ‘Rage‘…”
Her Poems
Matt Zoller Seitz, rogerebert.com: “She herself was saved by words…’The two things I loved from a very early age were the natural world, and dead poets,’ she once said.”
Zach Youngs, In Session Film: “… best reason to watch Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World is that it so heavily features Oliver’s poems. We get to hear the poems in full and sometimes with the words as written to accompany. A poem on paper doesn’t sing like a poem read. When you hear the proper cadence, the meter, and scheme of the work it enhances the emotion and depth behind the words.”
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: “The poems, as well as the moments and experiences they describe, are like little consolation prizes for everything the poems can’t keep out — isolation, loneliness, doom. Oliver’s poems don’t deny those bad things; they’re brave in the face of them.”
Her Identity
Zach Youngs, In Session Film: “The second best part of the film is that it does away with the hearsay and personal interpretations of Mary Oliver, the person. Much of what director Sasha Waters wants us to understand is that Mary Oliver was wholly herself. To many she’s a queer icon, a feminist, and a pop figure, but what we find through the narrative of the film is that she was only ever beholden to her own truth. She made no apologies and told no one what to think. As complicated as it seems, she didn’t find herself at the center of any movements and sought no recognition of status. She simply lived as she wanted with whom she wanted in order to write what she wanted. In a way that’s just as powerful.”
Steve Erickson, Gay City News: “John Waters calls Oliver ‘a gay woman who didn’t fit in her own minority.’ While she was openly lesbian in Provincetown, she didn’t speak publicly about her sexuality. Although her actions demonstrated her determination to live more freely than women are expected to, she rejected any association with the feminist movement.”
Abby Olcese, Sojourners: “The most we get of Oliver’s own spirituality is a brief attempt to attend church after [long-term partner Molly Malone] Cook’s death that didn’t take.”
Her Final Life Stages
Michael Londra, Arts Fuse: The death of Cook was “…a devastating loss; she subsequently began to drink, eventually seeking out Alcoholics Anonymous. After Oliver met Anne Taylor, her second long-term partner, the poet departed her beloved Provincetown for good. Taylor wanted to go elsewhere and Oliver accommodated her. They settled in Hobe Sound, Florida, remaining there for fourteen years. Oliver passed away at 83 from lymphoma in 2019.”
