Naomi Shihab Nye on Mary Oliver

“As readers and writers, we find a certain home in books and language and literature — like I hear a Mary Oliver poem, and it’s as if I’ve been her neighbor, because I’ve read so many of her poems, even though I’ve never spent a day in her town.”

“Mary Oliver wanted to smell flowering pink bushes/and blossoming trees in Texas./Pull over, she said, at more than one corner. She/needed to absorb the scents./A city wasn't just a name./In her presence, babies might sing for the first time./She is like that.”