Bridging Opposites

An Ecocritical Approach to Mary Oliver’s Poetry

Abstract

This paper looks at the poetry of Mary Oliver from an ecocritical perspective, arguing that her poetry works to undo the dichotomous pair nature/self and the associated pairs: woman/man, body/soul. Most scholarship devoted to Oliver’s celebrated works has found it hard to categorize her production, and I argue this is because most attempts have tended to force her works into the categories which these same works disarm. This paper attempts to reflect on the value of this type of poetry which is frequently disregarded as apolitical, and which, contrary to hasty conclusions, has great potential to foster social change.