{"product_id":"a-dream-of-summerisbn-9780807068724","title":"A Dream of Summer","description":"In summer, as Mary Oliver writes: \"There are satisfactions beyond number; fishermen get their catch, the food is delicious and real, the sail has just enough wind; the children, in the country at least, play riotously and can hardly be persuaded to remember the necessity of sleep, even when the fireflies are blinking as high as their bedroom windows. Also, the heat makes of neighborhood a genuine thing, people are out on lawns or porches; they are exhausted, happy, beneficent, less ambitious than in any other season, and they are full of the beautiful cloudy stuff of dreams.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Dream of Summer\u003c\/i\u003e assembles thirty-seven evocative poems on the experience and joy of summertime. Illustrated throughout with pen-and-ink drawings, this volume focuses on the sensuality of summertime and the varieties of summer experience. It is a love letter to the sultry heat, crashing thunderstorms, endless days, and short, mild nights. Gathered here is work by illustrious poets of the past, among them William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, John Keats, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, as well as more contemporary artists like Louise Gluck, Yusef Komunyakaa, Marge Piercy, and Charles Simic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRenowned poet Mary Oliver contributes an introduction, musing on this most enchanted and favored of seasons. Other contributors include Sharan Strange, Galway Kinnell, May Sarton, Robert Frost, Louise Bogan, Wallace Stevens, Denise Levertov, Robert Hayden, Derek Walcott, Marge Piercy, and many more. Biographical notes by editor Robert Atwan offer brief lives of each of the poets included in the volume.A private person by nature, \u003cb\u003eMary Oliver\u003c\/b\u003e has given very few interviews over the years. Instead, she prefers to let her work speak for itself. And speak it has, for the past five decades, to countless readers. The \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e recently acknowledged Mary Oliver as “far and away, this country’s best-selling poet.” Born in a small town in Ohio, Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28; \u003ci\u003eNo Voyage and Other Poems\u003c\/i\u003e, originally printed in the UK by Dent Press, was reissued in the United States in 1965 by Houghton Mifflin. Oliver has since published many works of poetry and prose. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a young woman, Oliver studied at Ohio State University and Vassar College, but took no degree. She lived for several years at the home of Edna St. Vincent Millay in upper New York state, companion to the poet’s sister Norma Millay. It was there, in the late ’50s, that she met photographer Molly Malone Cook. For more than forty years, Cook and Oliver made their home together, largely in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where they lived until Cook’s death in 2005. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOver the course of her long and illustrious career, Oliver has received numerous awards. Her fourth book, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Primitive\u003c\/i\u003e, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. She has also received the Shelley Memorial Award; a Guggenheim Fellowship; an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Achievement Award; the Christopher Award and the L.L. Winship\/PEN New England Award for \u003ci\u003eHouse of Light\u003c\/i\u003e; the National Book Award for \u003ci\u003eNew and Selected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e; a Lannan Foundation Literary Award; and the New England Booksellers Association Award for Literary Excellence. Oliver’s essays have appeared in \u003ci\u003eBest American Essays 1996, 1998, 2001\u003c\/i\u003e; the \u003ci\u003eAnchor Essay Annual 1998\u003c\/i\u003e, as well as \u003ci\u003eOrion\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eOnearth\u003c\/i\u003e and other periodicals. Oliver was editor of \u003ci\u003eBest American Essays 2009\u003c\/i\u003e. Oliver’s books on the craft of poetry, \u003ci\u003eA Poetry Handbook\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eRules for the Dance\u003c\/i\u003e, are used widely in writing programs. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She is an acclaimed reader and has read in practically every state as well as other countries. She has led workshops at various colleges and universities, and held residencies at Case Western Reserve University, Bucknell University, University of Cincinnati, and Sweet Briar College. From 1995, for five years, she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College. She has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from The Art Institute of Boston (1998), Dartmouth College (2007) and Tufts University (2008). Oliver currently lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the inspiration for much of her work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Beacon Press maintains a Mary Oliver website, maryoliver.beacon.org. You can also become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com\/poetmaryoliver.","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305362346213,"sku":"NP9780807068724","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780807068724.jpg?v=1730760279","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/a-dream-of-summerisbn-9780807068724","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}