The poet Mary Oliver died last week at age 83. Winner of a Pulitzer Prize in poetry and the National Book Award, Oliver will be remembered as one of the most celebrated and beloved American poets. In Provincetown, Mary Oliver’s home for over 50 years, she will be remembered as a friend, neighbor, and champion of local arts.
Oliver lived quietly on the East End of Commercial Street for 50 years, from 1964 until 2014.
And if you were hoping to run into her, there was one place to look.
“Go out on the beach at 5 in the morning. That’s how you run into Mary,” remembered Nan Cinnater, the lead librarian at the Provincetown Public Library.
Oliver was known for taking long, pre-dawn walks—walking for hours along the beach, or in the Provincelands. Like many locals, Cinnater got to know the poet around town.
“When you saw her in the Stop and Shop or whatever, she’d be chatting with people. She didn’t want to be the awe-inspiring Mary Oliver that people thought she was,” Cinnater said.
In 1969, she got involved with the Fine Arts Work Center, a local nonprofit arts organization. Oliver was one of the Center’s first faculty members, along with Alan Dugan and Stanley Kunitz—and all three became Pulitzer Prize-winning poets.
Oliver helped launch the Fine Arts Work Center writing fellowship. It’s a program that still exists today, bringing ten emerging writers each year to live and work in Provincetown. Alumni of the writing fellowship include distinguished authors such as Louise Gluck, Ann Patchett, and Viet Thanh Nguyen.
“The Work Center is very fortunate to have Mary as part of it from the very start,” said Margaret Murphy, President of the Fine Arts Work Center.
Murphy said that Oliver was a private person who gave very few public readings. During Oliver’s last decade in Provincetown, some of the rare public readings she did give were benefits for the Center. “They were always sell-out crowds," Murphy said. "She was very, very generous. Saying things to people between poems. She was just as gracious and warm and funny as could be.”
Outside the Fine Arts Work Center, Mary Oliver’s life was intertwined with Provincetown. Many of her poems were inspired by Provincetown’s wildlife and striking landscape.
Nan Cinnater said that working to preserve this environment can be one way to pay tribute to Mary Oliver. “I hope that the natural world that she loved remains intact," she said. "That would be the best memorial for her. That’s what made her poetry possible. She would want to see it remain that way.”
