From the Director of Beacon Press The 2006 Ware Lecture was, without question, the high point in the increasingly important relationship between Pulitzer-prize winning poet Mary Oliver and the UUA's Beacon Press. Ms. Oliver returned to Beacon Press in 2002, hoping to find a more compatible publishing home after ten years of wandering through commercial houses. Her goal was to be published "in the company of poets and thoughtful writers" and over the past four years, she has grown increasingly comfortable with her choice. In St. Louis last Friday, she felt the audience following her every word, applauding after each poem. It was an exhilarating experience for the poet. For Ms. Oliver, the UU audience represents readers who value her work not only for its beauty, but for the values deeply embedded in each line—an instinctive love and respect for all the natural world, and for the complex gifts of our own lives. In her two days in St. Louis (her journey unfortunately delayed for nine hours by weather conditions), Mary Oliver was pleased to meet not only our denominational leaders, but literally hundreds of her fans, as she sat in the Beacon Press booth and in the Ware Lecture auditorium and autographed copies of six different volumes of poems—the six proudly published by Beacon Press (House of Light; New & Selected Poems Volume One; Owls and Other Fantasies; Why I Wake Early; Blue Iris, New & Selected Poems Volume Two)—and her first-ever audio, just published by Beacon in April (At Blackwater Pond). After being greeted with unbridled joy by her little dog Percy, Mary took the time to phone me to say, again, what a wonderful experience she had at the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly, and to ask me to thank Bill Sinkford and all of the UUs who attended her reading. I assured her that all of our gratitude went resoundingly back to her. —Helene Atwan June 29, 2006

4109 Ware Lecture by Mary Oliver

Reported for UUA.org by Jone Johnson Lewis, Reporter; Margy Levine Young, Editor.

Due to our agreements with Ms. Oliver around her appearance at General Assembly, we regret that we are unable to offer video of her Ware Lecture reading.

After a long day—and nearing the end of the long week—of General Assembly workshops, plenaries, parties, and networking with other Unitarian Universalists, several thousand General Assembly participants gathered to hear this year's Ware Lecture.

The Rev. William G. Sinkford, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, introduced the poet Mary Oliver, noting that while in the UUA, worship draws from many sources, congregations use "none more effectively or more frequently than the work of Mary Oliver." Her poems reflect a love of the natural world and the struggle to find peace and compassion. She is "one of our most important liturgists," he said, also noting that she probably didn't plan that to happen.

A slight woman, dressed in a blue shirt and black slacks, Mary Oliver began by suggesting that the audience "save some of that applause for the Democrats."

She began her reading with a prose piece, published recently in a magazine as "Foods for Thought." Then, saying "I like poems better," she introduced the first of three Percy poems, about her little dog Percy, each reflecting a charming mischievousness. She continued with "When I Am Among the Trees," and another Percy poem, then "Beans."

Then she read a poem she described as "an old, old poem everybody wants me to read—so I'll do it." It was the UU favorite, "Wild Geese." After that, Oliver read "Yes! No!," a prose poem.

Commenting that young writers seem to give great attention to commas, she described a dilemma she tried to solve: how to get readers to read past the first sentence. A solution? Write a poem of only one sentence. But, she noted, this makes the poem "a little difficult to read." She did manage it.

From her new book coming out this fall, named Thirst, Oliver read "Great Moth Comes from is Papery Cave." She then read "Mozart for Example" and "Oxygen." She continued with a longer poem, "Six Recognitions of the Lord," followed (with a twinkle) by Percy Three: "Little Dog's Rhapsody in the Night."

Oliver introduced the next as "another old poem, using the clever device of questions the audience gets to answer—later." Then she read "In the Storm," another from her upcoming book, and "Such Singing in the Wild Branches."

Announcing that she was switching the order of the last two, she read "In the Evening in the Pine Woods," also from Thirst, and finished with "White Heron Rises over Blackwater," noting that there is no pond named Blackwater but that it was convenient to give a pond a name.

Sinkford closed the program, noting that the audience members had been "soothed and stimulated by this wonderful woman," putting into words the feeling in the room of calmness and good humor. After the reading, Mary Oliver stayed to sign copies of her books.

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