AMERICAN MASTERS: Mary Oliver: Saved by The Beauty of The World

By Jennifer Robinson / Web Producer

Published August 24, 2026 at 4:37 PM PDT

Mary seated on sofa with dogs, early 1990s

Stream with KPBS+ / Watch Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV

Celebrate the life and career of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Mary Oliver. Shaped by a solitary childhood and rising literary fame, Oliver published more than 30 collections of poetry and essays on nature, beauty, and love.

Listen to Steve Buscemi read Mary Oliver's poem "The Fish" in this excerpt from the film. "She's going to the deepest, most contradictory places where life and death usher from the same source."

Wild Geese" is one of Mary Oliver's most popular poems. Poet David Keplinger, musician Lucy Dacus, and comedian Stephen Colbert share what the poem means to them. "We think of wild as chaotic, but wild is harmonious with the wilderness, which is where we all came from," said Colbert. "We're born wild."

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Mary Oliver sought to call attention to the destruction of the earth in her work. According to Oliver, "our enjoyment of the natural world is, in the long run, political."

AMERICAN MASTERS: Mary Oliver: Saved by The Beauty of The World

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