UNDERCOVER and Mary Oliver

If you've ever read Mary Oliver's poetry, you'll know why I felt compelled to weave it into UNDERCOVER. Elisa, my novel's heroine, is struggling to define herself, to use her gift for language to emerge as her own important person. Dr. Charmin, Elisa's English teacher, wants to help. She's asked Elisa to create a book of words. She's encouraged her to believe in her own work. And then, toward the end of UNDERCOVER, Dr. Charmin gives Elisa a copy of Mary Oliver's poem, "Wild Geese," which begins, "You do not have to be good" and leads toward a line that starts, "Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,/the world offers itself to your imagination...."

"Wild Geese" is extraordinary—heartrending and uplifting at the same time. It's the poem that Elisa needs to push through to herself, the gift that Dr. Charmin shares.

Many volumes of Mary Oliver's work sit across from me as I type, alongside the work of other favorite poets (Stanley Kunitz, Ted Kooser, Rainer Maria Rilke, James Wright, Louise Gluck, Jack Gilbert, Gregory Djanikian, Gerald Stern, C.K. Williams). Recently I learned of another extraordinary Mary Oliver book, this one called OUR WORLD and featuring the photography of Oliver's long-time partner, Molly Malone Cook. It's a composite book—part journal, part poetry, part reminsce, and loss, always, and love, always. It is a book so full of clarity that you feel the breeze blowing through.