Join us for a special screening on 7/28 at 7pm featuring director Sasha Waters and documentary participant Donika Kelly, moderated by Melissa Febos.
Before the screening, there will be a reception and reading presented by Iowa City Poetry. Reception will begin at 6:15pm with the reading at 6:25pm in the Chauncey lobby. Director of Iowa City Poetry Lisa Roberts will MC, with readers including: Mario Duarte, Susan Fuchtman, Terry Haru, Kat Hirsch, Emily Mere, Linda Muller, Faith Rooney, Elizabeth Sloan, Carol Tyx, Sarai Camacho and Elizabeth Von Loh. Click here to read their bios. No ticket required for reading and reception.
Sasha Waters will also join us or a Q&A after the screening on Friday 7/24 starting at 6:15pm.
"An especially unique, emotional, and honest documentary about her life & her struggles, along with her beautiful poetry."—Alex Billington, First Showing
If poetry had a pop icon, Mary Oliver would be it. Celebrated best-selling poet, Pulitzer Prize-winner, lover of dogs and long walks in the woods, openly queer but intensely private, Oliver was America's unlikely contemporary mystic, stalking the ponds and forests of Cape Cod for nearly fifty years in order to open herself -- and her readers – to the known and unknowable world.
From a lonely childhood to literary fame, Oliver's life was shaped by devotion to nature, paying attention, and the long journey toward learning to love and to be loved. Her poems inspire liberals and conservatives, atheists and believers, naturalists and urbanites, speaking directly to contemporary anxieties about attention, presence, and the human relationship with the natural world -- issues that feel especially pressing in an era of climate crisis, digital distraction, and social fragmentation.
Featuring interviews with her close friends, including John Waters, never-before-seen personal photos, notebooks, and correspondence from her archive, and recitations of her work by Stephen Colbert, Lucy Dacus, Steve Buscemi, and Oprah Winfrey, Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World considers the poet's long lifetime of work in context, capturing the uniqueness of her world and the natural beauty that inspired her.