Synopses & Reviews
Intertwined in art and life: the prose of Mary Oliver and the photographs of Molly Malone Cook
Mary Oliver, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, is one of the most celebrated and best-selling poets in America. Molly Malone Cook, who died in 2005, was Olivers partner for many years, a pioneer gallery owner and photographer. This book joins Cooks photographs with Olivers prosea uniquely intimate intertwining of their lives and art. There are famous faces here, among them Lorraine Hansberry, Walker Evans, Norman Mailer, and even, through a restaurant window in Venice, Jean Cocteau. Other artists and dozens of wonderful characters and scenes are also immortalized by Cooks unfailing eye for telling detail and perfect compositiontwo strangers playing chess, laundry billowing in a cityscape, a Pueblo Indian with his 1958 Cadillac. Mary Oliver writes of Cooks work, the people they knew, and the places they visited or lived. The poets beautiful text captures not only the unique qualities of her partners work, but the very texture of their shared world.
Within the art world, Molly Malone Cook made her reputation as an early advocate of photography as an art form; she was a champion of the work of now-famous photographers, including Edward Steichen, Eugene Atget, Berenice Abbott, Minor White, Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, and W. Eugene Smith. Perhaps as important, in Mary Olivers moving words, Cook taught the beginner poet to see, with searching attention, and compassion.”
Her most affecting work [is] not in verse but in prose
remembrances of her relationship with photographer Molly Malone Cook, who died two years ago. Olivers half-dozen passages recalling her partner from Our World [are] heartfelt, intimate, loving.” John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2/5/08
The photographs Oliver has chosen reflect Cook's intuitive relationship with her subjects (even inanimate objects). The little girl on the stoop in New York City looks directly at the photographer, as does a kindly Robert Motherwell and a fierce, almost intimidating Walker Evans. Even though most of the photographs are dominated by a central person or object, there is a lot to look at in the margins, all part of the story. The stance of her subjectsreading a book, looking through a telescopeis always distinctive, creating the mood of the entire composition. The two photos of Oliver could have been taken only by someone who knew the subject well.” Susan Salter Reynolds, L. A. Times, 1/6/08
Cook was evidently an accomplished printer as well as a photographer and the images have been beautifully reproduced
In a photo which Cook took of Jean Cocteau dining in Venice in May 1954one of her several fine portraits of celebritieswe glimpse the photographer silhouetted in an oval mirror on the wall behind the French poet. Her own face is hidden by her upheld camera but we sense that she controls the composition. In this selection of Cooks work, so admirable in intention, she herself remains something of a shadow in a mirror. But perhaps, given her honesty of eye, we come to know her best by seeing the world as it once appeared through the discretion of her lens.” Eric Ormsby, The New York Sun, 12/5/2007
Synopsis
Mary Oliver, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, is one of the most celebrated poets in America. Molly Malone Cook, who died in 2005, was Oliver's partner for many years, a pioneer gallery owner and photographer.
Our World weaves forty-nine of Cook's photographs and selections from her journals with Oliver's extended writings, both reminiscence and reflection, in prose and in poetry. The result is an intimate revelation of their lives and art.
Within the art world, Molly Malone Cook made her reputation as an early advocate of photography as an art form; she was a champion of the work of now-famous photographers, including Edward Steichen, Eugene Atget, Berenice Abbott, Minor White, Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, and W. Eugene Smith. There are famous faces here as well, captured by Cook's camera, among them Walker Evans, Robert Motherwell and Henry Geldzahler, the first curator of twentieth-century art at the Metropolitan Museum.
Cook and Oliver also lived among writers, and Cook caught several on film, including Lorraine Hansberry and Norman Mailer. Other artists and dozens of wonderful characters and scenes are also immortalized by Cook's unfailing eye for telling detail and composition. Oliver writes of Cook's work, the people they knew, and the places they visited or lived. The poet's beautiful text captures not only the vivifying qualities of her partner's work, but the texture of their shared world. In Mary Oliver's words, Cook taught the beginner poet "to see, with searching attention and compassion."
About the Author
Mary Oliver is one of the most celebrated and best-selling poets in America. Her books include Red Bird; Our World; Thirst; Blue Iris; New and Selected Poems, Volume One; and New and Selected Poems, Volume Two. She has also published five books of prose, including Rules for the Dance and, most recently, Long Life. She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.