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Collected Poems 1952–1993
Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and former poet laureate of the United States, W. S. Merwin is one of our most widely read and admired poets. This first volume in The Library of America’s two-volume edition of his poetry gathers thirteen books that chart a remarkable literary evolution across five decades.
Merwin’s early, formalist poems were the fruits of a long and intensive initiation into his craft carried on through his encounters as a Princeton undergraduate in the mid-1940s with the poets R. P. Blackmur and John Berryman, his crucial correspondence with Ezra Pound, and his first forays into translation. Awarded the Yale Younger Poets prize, Merwin’s first collection, A Mask for Janus (1952), showed how brilliantly he had assimilated the influences of Pound, W. H. Auden, and other poets of the modernist era, and revealed his mastery of such forms as the ballad and the sestina. In the three volumes that followed—The Dancing Bears (1954), Green with Beasts (1956), and The Drunk in the Furnace (1960)—Merwin continued to use traditional forms and meter to write searchingly about animals, the sea, biblical figures, and the themes of myth and legend.
In The Moving Target (1963), Merwin adopted a startlingly new poetic style, employing a looser, more flexible line and, in the poems that concluded the book, abandoning the use of punctuation: “I came to feel that punctuation was like nailing the words onto the page. Since I wanted instead the movement and lightness of the spoken word, one step toward that was to do away with punctuation, make the movement of the words do the punctuating for themselves, as they do in ordinary speech.” In tandem with this stylistic change, Merwin began to engage with “new and urgent questions” brought on by political events. The Lice (1967), one of the most important books of poetry published in the 1960s, responded with impassioned outrage to the Vietnam War (“The Asians Dying”) and forebodings of environmental catastrophe (“For a Coming Extinction”).
Although political concerns have never receded from his poetry, many of Merwin’s poems since the 1960s address the timeless themes of human mortality and the enigmas of consciousness. Merwin has also written moving autobiographical poems about his family, his years living in Manhattan, and his life on the island of Maui, where he moved in 1978.
Collected Poems 1952–1993 concludes with a selection of previously uncollected poems, chosen by editor J. D. McClatchy in consultation with the author, including “Camel,” related thematically to the animal poems of Green with Beasts, and “Views from the High Camp,” a visionary reckoning with loss.
Merwin’s early, formalist poems were the fruits of a long and intensive initiation into his craft carried on through his encounters as a Princeton undergraduate in the mid-1940s with the poets R. P. Blackmur and John Berryman, his crucial correspondence with Ezra Pound, and his first forays into translation. Awarded the Yale Younger Poets prize, Merwin’s first collection, A Mask for Janus (1952), showed how brilliantly he had assimilated the influences of Pound, W. H. Auden, and other poets of the modernist era, and revealed his mastery of such forms as the ballad and the sestina. In the three volumes that followed—The Dancing Bears (1954), Green with Beasts (1956), and The Drunk in the Furnace (1960)—Merwin continued to use traditional forms and meter to write searchingly about animals, the sea, biblical figures, and the themes of myth and legend.
In The Moving Target (1963), Merwin adopted a startlingly new poetic style, employing a looser, more flexible line and, in the poems that concluded the book, abandoning the use of punctuation: “I came to feel that punctuation was like nailing the words onto the page. Since I wanted instead the movement and lightness of the spoken word, one step toward that was to do away with punctuation, make the movement of the words do the punctuating for themselves, as they do in ordinary speech.” In tandem with this stylistic change, Merwin began to engage with “new and urgent questions” brought on by political events. The Lice (1967), one of the most important books of poetry published in the 1960s, responded with impassioned outrage to the Vietnam War (“The Asians Dying”) and forebodings of environmental catastrophe (“For a Coming Extinction”).
Although political concerns have never receded from his poetry, many of Merwin’s poems since the 1960s address the timeless themes of human mortality and the enigmas of consciousness. Merwin has also written moving autobiographical poems about his family, his years living in Manhattan, and his life on the island of Maui, where he moved in 1978.
Collected Poems 1952–1993 concludes with a selection of previously uncollected poems, chosen by editor J. D. McClatchy in consultation with the author, including “Camel,” related thematically to the animal poems of Green with Beasts, and “Views from the High Camp,” a visionary reckoning with loss.
- GenresPoetry
852 pages, Hardcover
First published April 4, 2013
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About the author
W.S. Merwin
192 books347 followersWilliam Stanley Merwin was an American poet, credited with over fifty books of poetry, translation and prose.
William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests.
Merwin received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971 and 2009; the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005, and the Tanning Prize—one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets—as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the Library of Congress named him the 17th United States Poet Laureate.
William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests.
Merwin received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971 and 2009; the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005, and the Tanning Prize—one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets—as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the Library of Congress named him the 17th United States Poet Laureate.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 28, 2021
When You Go Away
When you go away the wind clicks around to the north
The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls
Showing the black walls
The clock goes back to striking the same hour
That has no place in the years
And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes
In one breath I wake
It is the time when the beards of the dead get their growth
I remember that I am falling
That I am the reason
And that my words are the garment of what I shall never be
Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy
When you go away the wind clicks around to the north
The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls
Showing the black walls
The clock goes back to striking the same hour
That has no place in the years
And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes
In one breath I wake
It is the time when the beards of the dead get their growth
I remember that I am falling
That I am the reason
And that my words are the garment of what I shall never be
Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy
February 6, 2019
The thirteen books collected in this volume vary in quality from middling to great, but Merwin is such an interesting poet that I think reading him in order in a compressed period of time is a fantastic way to approach his body of work. Sometimes, even the mediocre stuff is interesting in context.
July 20, 2014
The four is a "guarded" four as, with any kind of collected volume, there is likely to be a lot of dead weight. There is a lot of dead weight here, but what is good is pretty much as good as American poetry of the 2nd half of the 20th century gets. Jack Gilbert is more consistent; Louis Simpson too. But Merwin, though too productive, is capable of great strength. I didn't quite finish this book--the final volume, Travels, has for the moment pushed me away. But I may come back to it. Who knows?
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews