Mary Oliver's main theme was the meeting of the human and natural world, together with a sensitive awareness of transcendence in the interaction. This was her personal testimony: ‘It was a very bad childhood for everybody, every member of the household, not just myself, I think. And I escaped it, barely, with years of trouble. But I did find the entire world in looking for something. But I got saved by poetry. And I got saved by the beauty of the world.'