After reading Mary Oliver's biography and Maria Shriver interview I learned that the themes in her writing are a mixture of human interactions with nature and the limitations of the human mind. Understanding Mary Oliver's themes allows us, the readers to interpret her poetry on a spiritual level further connecting us with her writing. A rather saddening fact that I learned from reading each of the two articles is that Mary Oliver was sexually abused as a child. Although it the idea of sexual abuse does not appear in her writing, it allows us to understand how it shaped her life and her writing.
