The Rain in the Trees

by W.S. Merwin

The poems in this new book are concerned with intimacy and wholeness, and are made of the relations with people, with places, past and present, and with history and how the world endures it.

Genres: Poetry, 20th Century, Nature, American

Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

William 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.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 3 out of 5]

You make me remember all of the elements
the sea remembering all of its waves

in each of the waves there was always a sky made of water
and an eye that looked once

there was the shape of one mountain
and a blood kinship with rain

and the air for touch and for the tongue
at the speed of light

in which the world is made
from a single star

and our ears
are formed of the sea as we listen

[Ken]

Once a poet with a longer publishing résumé than mine told me: "Watch for the repetition of words in your poems. There are sites online where you can cut and paste all your poems [collection, chapbook] to see which words you overuse."

Luckily she didn't advise W.S. Merwin. In this book he'd probably go over 100 with words like "trees," "water," "rain," "waves," "sun," "white," "green," "night," "leaves," and "dark" (for starters).

Back to my advisor: "Watch out for too many lines that start with prepositions, conjunctions, and articles."

Luckily, she didn't advise W.S. Merwin. In this book, at least 50% of his lines start with words like "and," "for," "on," "in," "as," "to," "while," "the," and "a" (for starters).

Which proves, what? You have to know the rules to break them (as the old saw goes)? Or rules in poetry aren't worth their weight in grams, as many successful poets will be happy to demonstrate.

Merwin takes some getting used to. Although he'll start poems with a capital letter, you'd be hard-pressed to find one after that. Punctuation? Try your imagination if you're overly attached to them. This means some lines read like gobbledygook until you slow down and search out your pauses.

But it's like another language quickly conned and, before long, you speak Merwin fluently and might even get a job as a translator.

Here are two that spoke to me in capital, uncapitalized or unpunctuated ways:


UTTERANCE

Sitting over words
very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing
not far
like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark
the echo of everything that has ever
been spoken
still spinning its one syllable
between the earth and silence


Anniversary on the Island

The long waves glide in through the afternoon
while we watch from the island
from the cool shadow under the trees where the long ridge
a fold in the skirt of the mountain
runs down to the end of the headland

day after day we wake to the island
the light rises through the drops on the leaves
and we remember like birds where we are
night after night we touch the dark island
that once we set out for

and lie still at last with the island in our arms
hearing the leaves and the breathing shore
there are no years any more
only the one mountain
and on all side the sea that brought us


Ah, yes. Dreamy nice (for/shore/more), especially if you like nature poetry, a kind of poetry vastly out of style in our fraught times (when islands, wind, and waves just aren't fraught enough).

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

and I have wakened in a wind of messages.

This was a very inconclusive introduction to the poet Merwin. It was likely bad form to begin this after reading Bloom on Dante. Merwin doesn’t allude much to the Gnostic nor does he divine links to the ancients. Merwin does sketch the weather as well as consider the stubblefields of our subconscious. He does weep over deforestation and our emblazoned absence of memory. He considers the boarding chutes at airports to be a reflection of our soulless vanity.

[missy jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps it’s because I am writing this review with my windows open, and I can feel spring creeping up on me. Perhaps it’s because every time I turn on the news, there’s another story about corporate gluttony and corruption that makes my stomach turn. But I want to keep reading these poems, over and over. The Rain in the Trees was a perfectly-timed read for me: a story about nature and the wild, and about the human tendency to dominate anything that seems foreign or pure, and about what we are sacrificing when we destroy the earth and colonize peoples.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thrilled to have finally discovered this remarkable poet's work, especially later poems that focus on the power and mystery of nature. One line from his poem, "The Horizons of Rooms," captures the feeling of this highly recommended collection:

for a time beyond measure there were no rooms
and now many have forgotten the sky

[James Aura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A master of simplicity,words and meaning. A book to read a page or two at a time.

[Monica Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my Merwin favorites:

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

[Ashly Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like I have heard the name W.S. Merwin before but had no idea what to expect when I grabbed this off the library shelf.

Typically, the lack of punctuation in poetry leaves me a little anxious and unnerved and this was mostly the case in this collection. In some pieces, the breathlessness worked for the content and imagery, but in most cases it was just off-putting.

I enjoyed the collection okay, but I don't think I will be running after more Merwin.

[Kelsey Capps · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love his wizard name and his wizard thinking. Nothing but wonder here.

[Bryana Beaird · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to give this book five stars, even though I suspect if Merwin and I were to sit down over coffee, we would find little to agree on. There were portions of this book where the divide between our presuppositions was made very evident, but overall the poetry in this volume is about the human experience, which is more or less universal. In an era when universals and traditional imagery are frowned upon by many leading figures in the academic community, Merwin’s focus on nature and wide themes was like a breath of mountain air. It should be noted that there is deep sorrow coursing through the pages of The Rain in the Trees: the sorrows of things forgotten, things lost and, most of all, things without answers. It is a book to be read cautiously. Merwin is an author to whom we should be prepared to give an answer for the hope that we have.

Some favorite portions:

From Term:

they are on their way already
their feet are the feet of ghosts
watching them is like watching a ship
leaving the shore
and seeing that it will never arrive

From Before Us:

You were there all the time and I saw only
the days the air
the nights the moon changing
cars passing and faces at windows
the windows
the rain the leaves the years
words on pages telling of something else
wind in a mirror

everything begins so late after all

From History:

there was a note on a page
made at the time
and the book was closed
and taken on a journey
into a country where no one
knew the language
no one could read
even the address
inside the cover
and there the book was
of course lost

it was a book full of words to remember
this is how manage without them
this is how they manage
without us

I was not going to be long

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is poetry for people who think they don't like poetry. Standouts for me: The Sound of the Light, Losing a Language, Chord, and Losing a Stepson. I was lucky enough to attend a poetry reading by W. S. Merwin at George Mason University (my alma mater). He was a compelling speaker and talked about the leper colonies of Hawaii that his newest book, The Folding Cliffs: A Narrative, was based on. He mentioned Robert Louis Stevenson and the letter that he had written to Henry Hyde, 15 pages long, was a masterpiece of the English language and well worth reading. Generally in his poetry he shares his unique way of seeing the world. My favorite poem, Losing a language, is one of the most moving and political poems I've read. Chord, which juxtaposes the horrible circumstances suffered by most of the world during the times that Keats was alive and creating his masterpieces is a close second. Merwin is a treasure.

[Dylan]

I'm reading through Lithub's 365 Books to Start Your Climate Change Library, a reading list in four sections (Classics, Science, Fiction & Poetry, and Ideas). This book is #2 of Part 3: Fiction and Poetry and #5 overall.

I'm physically incapable of reviewing poetry, but this was really good. Whole thing has a post-apocalyptic, return to nature feel.

[Joe Imwalle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like to dog ear my favorite poems in a book. With this one, I was often faced with a dilemma. Being that the pages are printed with poems on either side, I often was unsure which direction to fold down the page. So many great poems. There are 11 pages dog eared, but some are to mark both sides.

Merwin was the true steward of mystery in the form of word beauty.

Here’s a sample from this book:


PLACE

On the last day of the world
I would want to plant a tree

what for
not for the fruit

the tree that bears the fruit
is not the one that was planted

I want the tree that stands
in the earth for the first time

with the sun already
going down

and the water
touching its roots

in the earth full of the dead
and the clouds passing

one by one
over its leaves

[Bobby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though I don't read poetry much anymore, when I do, it seems to me a bit too clever and oblique. The words don't soar like those by Rumi or Neruda did (and still do), and I find most poets far removed from me as a reader. But these poems--paeans to nature in its various forms and the author's past--are reminiscent of Rumi and Neruda thankfully. Though there is a sense of wistfulness that pervades these poems, by no means are they depressing. Longing for and reminiscing about bygone times is a universal human condition and there are some very fine examples here.

[Abraham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Half of the time I feel like Merwin's lack of punctuation is a liberation of the page and half the time it seems to be so limiting - like trying to frame a house with only one tool (a Skillsaw maybe?)I guess it's a kind of hidden formalism which sets inherent rules for how the writer can control the pace of reading.

Otherwise, this book has some long moments of Merwin-esque brilliance and runs a little too declarative at other times. Still a good read, though you should read The Lice first.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some great, late Merwin.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that got me into Merwin's poetry. The poems hypnotize me with their rhythm and spaciousness.

[june · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection with a touch of nature splayed in every page I turn.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, as usual. This is one of my W.S. Merwin favorites.

[Denis Siminiuc · Rating 4 out of 5]

solid
capitalism hater checked
environmentalist checked
metaphysics metaphors checked
relativity checked

[Amy Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Merwin was an absolute master and is one of my favorite poets. This collection from 1988 is not as transcendent and timeless as some of his others for me, being very much of its own moment.

Still some gems, though:
- "After School"
- "Empty Water"
- "Waking to the Rain"
- "Anniversary on the Island"
- "The Solstice"
- "Travelling Together"
- "The Rose Beetle"

[Jennifer Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Merwin's poems have a simplicity of respect and language that echoes from the page, and I found the sequences here to be especially powerful poems that I look forward to revisiting. The shorter poems often had lovely language, but not the level of emotional impact the longer ones achieved. Merwin is a poet I'll read and re-read, though, and gladly recommend.

[Jared · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick note: something likely overlooked about this collection is the author's ability to make clear the importance of being around people who can see the world through your eyes. Between the covers, there's a poem about how Merwin's parents failed him on this front. I think it's the highlight of "The Rain in the Trees."

[Scarlet · Rating 4 out of 5]

(…) I turned to the amber hill and followed
along the gray fallen wall
by the small mossed oaks and the bushes of rusting
arches bearing the ripe
blackberries into the long shadow
and climbed the ancient road
through the last songs of the blackberries

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know poetry is subjective but I just did not connect with these poems. None really stood out to me, I found the collection boring. I guess this is supposed to be a history of Hawaii, but I didn't get that. W.S. Merwin is just not for me.

[Margaret Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good to be read like one very long poem, with 15-16 very amazing parts, and some interesting ones, and some parts I don’t understand

I like how he admits he doesn’t know how to read and wants to learn the language of the insects!!!!

[Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written and thought-provoking.
Check out: After the Alphabets; Travelling Together; Conqueror; Losing a Language.

[Stephen Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty middling for Merwin; some great stuff, some filler.

[Diane Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first exposure to Merwin. The sadness, or maybe melancholy, quiet anger? regrets for the world, was somehow unexpected. Powerful

[Micaela Gerhardt]

"after a long time you look down / into a valley without a name / after a long time as water you look up"

- The Biology of Art