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Prolific Queer Poet and Pulitzer Prize Winner Mary Oliver Dies at 83

Oliver lived with Molly Malone Cook, her partner of more than 40 years, until Cook's death in '05.

Acclaimed poet and essayist Mary Oliver has died of complications from lymphoma at age 83, reports the Associated Press.

Oliver—who spent the bulk of her life and career with her partner of more than 40 years, photographer Molly Malone Cook—wrote upwards of 15 poetry and essay collections. She lived with Cook in Provincetown, MA, and later moved to Hobe Sound, FL, after Cook's death in 2005.

A lifelong environmentalist, Oliver used themes and motifs from the natural world to explore her emotions, relationships, and spirituality. Her fifth poetry collection, American Primitive, won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1984, and her 1992 collection, New and Selected Poems, was a National Book Award winner. Writes AP, "Oliver wrote brief, direct pieces that sang of her worship of the outdoors and disdain for greed, despoilment and other human crimes... Her muses were owls and butterflies, frogs and geese, the changes of the seasons, the sun and the stars."

Fans of her writing include former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, journalist and activist Maria Shriver, and award-winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay, all of whom took to Twitter today to remember her words and celebrate her legacy.

Her memory was also honored by Lambda Literary's editorial team, who praised her for her "celebratory delight in the 'everyday' and her commitment to examining both the spiritual and pastoral."

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