:: I am a writer because, when I was a sophomore in college, I lucked into a 6-person poetry writing workshop with Mary Oliver.
She forced me to reckon with every word I put down on the page. I didn’t understand what words were until that writing workshop. I was nineteen years old.
I didn’t even know who she was when I submitted a packet of poems to be considered for the workshop. I didn’t understand how thrilled I should be when I was accepted. I didn’t understand that others at my school were angry that an upstart newb had taken their place. Thank goodness I knew nothing about the backbiting and meanness that writing could entail.
Instead, I learned from Mary Oliver that writing meant looking at ordinary objects intently and deliberately. It meant taking your time. It meant taking yourself seriously, even at a school like Duke, where young women were not, as a rule, taken seriously.
Mary Oliver taught me to write. She taught me to take myself seriously. She changed my entire fucking life.
Mary Oliver, 1935-2019
*A Note on the photograph:
In the photo is a poem by Mary Oliver that she wrote about me when I missed class for an intercollegiate equestrian event (yes, I know how that sounds). As I recall, she had everyone in the class write quatrains. I saved hers. I should have saved them all. The poem reads:
Katie at the Gallop
We hope you cantered fine and fair,
we hope you galloped fast
and swung your little whip; we hope
you did not come in last.
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