Now in paperback: the national bestseller from the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet

"To read Thirst, Mary Oliver's most recent book of poems, is to feel gratitude for the simple fact of being alive." -Angela O'Donnell, America Magazine

Thirst, a collection of forty-three new poems from Pulitzer Prize-winner Mary Oliver, introduces two new directions in the poet's work. Grappling with grief at the death of her beloved partner of over forty years, she strives to experience sorrow as a path to spiritual progress, grief as part of loving and not its end. And within these pages she chronicles for the first time her discovery of faith, without abandoning the love of the physical world that has been a hallmark of her work for four decades.

"Mary Oliver moves by instinct, faith, and determination. She is among our finest poets, and still growing." -Alicia Ostriker, The Nation

"It has always seemed, across her many] books of poetry, . . . that Mary Oliver might leave us at any minute. Even a 1984 Pulitzer Prize couldn't pin her to the ground. She'd change quietly into a heron or a bear and fly or walk on forever." -Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times