Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver will give the Francis X. Shea Memorial Lecture at 7 p.m. Monday, March 31, in the Mitchell Auditorium on The College of St. Scholastica campus. The lecture, comprised of poetry reading and commentary, is free and open to the public. Seating is limited; doors will open at 6 p.m. A book signing will be held after the presentation and refreshments will be served.

“In her wonderful poems about nature and everyday life, Mary Oliver reminds us that God is not only in us but around us,” said Dr. William Campbell, assistant professor of theology and religious studies at St. Scholastica, and chair of the Shea Lectureship Committee.

Oliver has published more than 20 books of poetry including “American Primitive” for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. She also received the National Book Award for Poetry for “New and Selected Poems.”

More than half a million copies of her work are in print and she is regularly on the Poetry Foundation’s bestseller list. Currently, two of her collections are listed in the “top five.”

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that a Feb. 4 appearance by Oliver had the “fastest sellout in the 20-year history” of Seattle Arts & Lectures. She has become, the paper noted, “a poetry phenomenon.”

Oliver’s “truest ancestors” are Robert Frost and Henry David Thoreau, according to the Poetry Foundation Web site. Like them, “she observes the natural landscape of New England in minute detail…. For Oliver, nature is not only awe-inspiring; it possesses a comprehensive order.”

The foundation notes that her latest work, “Thirst” (2006), “marks a significant departure…. In it, she grapples with grief over the loss of her partner of more than 40 years, and chronicles the spiritual journey that followed.”

She has received an American Academy of Arts & Letters Award, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has taught at Case Western Reserve University, Bucknell University, Sweet Briar College, University of Cincinnati and Bennington College.

The Rev. Francis X. Shea was president of St. Scholastica from 1971-1974. The lectureship explores the relationship between theology and literature in a way that reflects his lifelong interest in the integration of ideas from these academic disciplines.

The lecture is sponsored by the F.X. Shea Endowment Fund, the Benedictine Liberal Arts Education Program, the Rose Warner Professorship, the English Department, the Interreligious Forum, the Women and Gender Studies Program, the Dignitas Program, the Alworth Center for the Study of Peace and Justice, and the Theology and Religious Studies Department.

 For more information, call Sharon LaTour at (218) 723-5985.