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Who really said it

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Written by Mary Oliver 1935–2019 · American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner
Verified In copyright

These are the closing two lines of ‘The Summer Day,’ first collected in House of Light (Beacon Press, 1990). The attribution is almost never the problem with this one — the wording is. As published it reads “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?”, with the ‘Tell me,’ intact and a line break after ‘plan to do.’

Last verified 20 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life? —Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day," House of Light (Beacon Press, 1990). In copyright — permission required for commercial or published use.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by NW Orchard LLC (Mary Oliver Estate)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Mary Oliver — American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner. Theme: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Poem
“The Summer Day” — closing couplet
Collection
House of Light (Beacon Press, Boston, 1990)
Poet
Mary Oliver, 1935–2019
Rights holder
NW Orchard LLC (the Mary Oliver Estate)

Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? The Summer Day, 1990

The poem’s final four lines. The famous quotation is the last two — note the line break after ‘plan to do,’ which nearly every reproduction collapses.

"The Summer Day" — licensed full text (Academy of American Poets)

How we traced it

  • Beacon Press — Oliver’s original publisher — prints the poem with the credit line ‘Copyright © 1990 by Mary Oliver. First published in House of Light, Beacon Press,’ confirming poem, collection, publisher and year Beacon Broadside ↗.
  • The Academy of American Poets carries the licensed full text, reprinted by permission of the Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency as agent for the author — which both fixes the canonical wording and shows the live permissions chain poets.org ↗.
  • The estate site states that NW Orchard LLC owns, by assignment, all intellectual property created by Mary Oliver, and routes permissions through the Sheedy agency maryoliver.com ↗.
  • Beacon’s own re-use policy is explicit: ‘Please do not distribute Mary Oliver’s poetry without permission’ — all uses require advance clearance re-use policy ↗.
In copyright

In copyright until 1 January 2090. Published 1990; Mary Oliver died 17 January 2019, so the term runs life plus 70 years. Rights are held by NW Orchard LLC, and MARY OLIVER® is additionally a registered trademark — which matters for merchandise even beyond the text. Practical read: reading the two lines aloud in a eulogy or putting them on a memorial program with credit is the low-risk end, and a brief credited quotation on a lecture slide is a strong fair-use posture. Reproducing it in a book, a paid course, or on anything for sale needs written permission (Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency). For poetry, ‘it’s only two lines’ is not a defence — two lines can be a substantial part of a short poem. This is not legal advice.

Fact-check

Right poet, wrong words

Unusually for a quote this famous, the attribution is almost always correct — people know it is Mary Oliver. What goes wrong is the text itself, and the assumption that a much-loved line is free to use.

‘Tell me,’ truncated

The most common reproduction begins ‘What is it you plan to do…’, cutting the ‘Tell me,’ that makes it a direct address to the reader. Others rewrite it as ‘What will you do with your one wild and precious life?’ — changing the verb outright canonical text ↗.

‘this’ for ‘your’, ‘wild precious’ corrupted text

Widely sold journals and prints drop the ‘and’ (‘one wild precious life’) or swap ‘your’ for ‘this.’ The line break after ‘plan to do’ is almost universally collapsed into prose.

Merchandise and reprints rights error

Because the poem is beloved and widely reposted, people treat it as public domain. It is not, and will not be until 2090; the estate requires advance permission for reuse Beacon re-use policy ↗.

Genuinely Mary Oliver, ‘The Summer Day’ (1990) — quote it in full, with the line break, and clear permission before selling or publishing it licensed text ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

The question lands so hard because of what comes before it. Most of the poem is Oliver doing nothing in particular — kneeling in the grass, watching a grasshopper eat sugar from her hand, admitting she does not know exactly what a prayer is. She earns the closing question by first paying close attention to something small.

Then she turns it on the reader: everything dies at last, and too soon, so — what do you plan to do? It works at funerals and graduations for the same reason, which is why it turns up at both.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

The wording people actually print

As published: ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?’

Most common variant: ‘What will you do with your one wild and precious life?’

Also seen: ‘What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’ (‘Tell me,’ dropped)

On merchandise: ‘your one wild precious life’ (‘and’ dropped) and ‘this one wild and precious life.’

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Purpose Mortality

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

"The Summer Day" — full text, licensedpoets.org

The canonical wording and line breaks, reprinted by permission with the full copyright and agency credit.
Beacon Press on "The Summer Day"beaconbroadside.com

The original publisher printing the poem with its 1990 House of Light credit line.
Mary Oliver — official estate sitemaryoliver.com

NW Orchard LLC’s statement of ownership, trademark, and where to send permission requests.
Beacon Press — Mary Oliver re-use policymaryoliver.beacon.org

“Please do not distribute Mary Oliver’s poetry without permission” — the publisher’s clearance requirement in plain terms.
House of Lightpenguinrandomhouse.com

Catalogue record confirming 1990 as the collection’s original publication year.

The real author

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver

1935–2019 · American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) won the Pulitzer Prize for American Primitive (1983) and the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems (1992). She wrote plainly and closely about the natural world — grasshoppers, ponds, geese, mornings — and turned that attention into questions about how a person ought to live. That combination made her one of the most quoted poets in America, and one of the most frequently misquoted: her lines travel far past her books, onto cards, headstones and slides, usually trimmed.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Oliver, Mary. “The Summer Day.” House of Light. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990.

MLA (9th ed.)

Oliver, Mary. “The Summer Day.” House of Light, Beacon Press, 1990.

APA (7th ed.)

Oliver, M. (1990). The summer day. In House of light. Beacon Press.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’” Last verified 20 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/tell-me-what-is-it-you-plan-to-do-with-your-one-wild-and

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