WOODS & WORDS

Mary Oliver’s lifelong dedication to poetry was fueled by her natural surroundings.

Mary escapes to the woods as a child, “alone except for the poets she had tucked in her knapsack.” She fills notebooks, wearing pencils “down to splinters.” While Oliver’s young adulthood receives scant attention, Ackerman doesn’t shy away from introducing Molly Malone Cook, the poet’s partner of 40 years, with whom she settles in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Words and pictures synchronize to show how deeply Oliver connected with nature to find her poems. “There were always poems if you paid attention. / She found one burrowing under / a damp, / mysterious / layer of leaves.” Stoop depicts a crouched Oliver encountering a mole, the subject of a resultant poem. Oliver forages for both words and food: “For poems, yes, but also… / she saw how the woods were full of supper / to bring back to the boathouse she and Molly called home.” Here Stoop includes a charming page of labeled shellfish, mushrooms, and berries. Successive spreads explore the publishing job Oliver took when money was short, her road to publication, her awards, and her wide readership. Notably, Ackerman highlights Oliver’s insistence on unadorned speech: “Mary believed poems were for everyone, / best served plain. / …and readers tucked her words / in their knapsacks and loved them.” Pleasing illustrations teem with flora and fauna, including the couple’s dogs.

A well-crafted, admiring introduction to a deservedly revered American poet.