Mary Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 2007 The NYT described her as “far and away, this country’s best-selling poet.”
George Crabbe was an English poet, surgeon and clergyman. He’s best known for his early use of the realistic narrative form and his descriptions of middle and working-class life.
The Oxen relates to a West Country legend: that, on the anniversary of Christ’s Nativity, each Christmas Day, farm animals kneel in their stalls in homage.
