SOURCE: A review of A Poetry Handbook and White Pine in Bloomsbury Review, Vol. 15, No. 4, July-August, 1995, p. 28.

In the following review, Smith praises A Poetry Handbook for providing an incisive guide for students of poetry and notes an emphasis on storytelling and mythmaking in White Pine.

I have before me on the desk a stack of books nearly the height of my coffee mug, Mary Oliver's combined output for the past 15 years and all of her work she has chosen to keep in print. By most poets' productivity standards—a collection every five years or so is standard—this is prodigy. The titles—Twelve Moons, American Primitive, Dream Work, House of Light, and New and Selected Poems—evoke for the reader who has consistently followed Oliver's trail some of the most radiant moments in American poetry in recent decades. To that bright stack, we can now and White...