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The Essential W.S. Merwin
“Merwin is one of the great poets of our age.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Merwin has become instantly recognizable on the page; he has made for himself that most difficult of all creations, an accomplished style.”—Helen Vendler, New York Review of Books
“It is gratifying to read poetry that is this ambitious, that cares about vision and the possibilities of poetry, by a poet who is capable of so much change.”—The Nation
Essential means just that: A deeply considered selection from W.S. Merwin’s vast oeuvre that represents the poems—and a few select pieces of prose—that readers will cherish today, tomorrow, and into the next century. This incisive, slender collection draws only the best of the best from the work Merwin published over his sixty-year writing career. A teeming, resonate, exuberant testament of a rare, revolutionary, and deeply rewarding poet.
And what better way to honor those thousands of poems that are not in The Essential by highlighting an aphoristic poem that is:
Separation
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
Since launching his career by winning the Yale Younger Poets Award 1952, W.S. Merwin has written and translated sixty books of poetry and prose and won every major literary prize this country has to offer. He lives in Hawaii, within the palm forest where he wrote, “On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree.”
“Merwin has become instantly recognizable on the page; he has made for himself that most difficult of all creations, an accomplished style.”—Helen Vendler, New York Review of Books
“It is gratifying to read poetry that is this ambitious, that cares about vision and the possibilities of poetry, by a poet who is capable of so much change.”—The Nation
Essential means just that: A deeply considered selection from W.S. Merwin’s vast oeuvre that represents the poems—and a few select pieces of prose—that readers will cherish today, tomorrow, and into the next century. This incisive, slender collection draws only the best of the best from the work Merwin published over his sixty-year writing career. A teeming, resonate, exuberant testament of a rare, revolutionary, and deeply rewarding poet.
And what better way to honor those thousands of poems that are not in The Essential by highlighting an aphoristic poem that is:
Separation
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
Since launching his career by winning the Yale Younger Poets Award 1952, W.S. Merwin has written and translated sixty books of poetry and prose and won every major literary prize this country has to offer. He lives in Hawaii, within the palm forest where he wrote, “On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree.”
356 pages, Paperback
Published August 29, 2017
36 people are currently reading
763 people want to read
About the author
W.S. Merwin
192 books346 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 - 30 of 35 reviews
January 5, 2018
There were a couple of Merwin poems I loved already before I picked up this book ("For the Anniversary of my Death" and ("Yesterday"). I loved them for the perfect music of those unpunctuated lines, for the interrupted breaths of his line lengths and the subtle caesuras, and for the poet's willingness to face and to wonder about life, death, time, and connections between people, without harshness but without flinching. Those poems I already loved did not try to settle the questions we have about our place in the world, but instead expressed those questions, leaving them suspended in mid-air, putting into words what cannot be put into words.
I never found it easy to navigate Merwin's other poems, and often gave up trying to understand them because I just didn't have the time or the patience. To be fair, relatively early in his career, he gave up punctuation except for the capital letter at the beginning, and though his poems are in complete sentences it requires careful reading, re-reading (and usually, reading aloud) to find out how they progress. That deliberately cryptic habit can be daunting.
I resolved this year to read something that is not social media first thing in the morning, and decided on this chronologically-arranged anthology, which I had bought in the hopeful belief that I could investigate Merwin with the respect I thought he might deserve. I took the book, a pencil, and my phone downstairs with me, opened the book at the beginning, and began to make my own attempts at reading carefully and closely.
I just completed reading it, now have 20 more "favorite" Merwin poems, and am sorry the journey is over. I learned a great deal about poetry in general, and specifically about Merwin's poetry, and it was time well spent.
The selected poems in this book span his career. I could have done without the translations, but they are representative of Merwin's interests (he is a prolific translator).
His earliest poems show knowledge of poetic forms, tremendous erudition, virtuosity, and self-importance, as I suppose the early poems of a young poet should. They cover many of the themes that appear in his later work, but they're sometimes overwrought. I loved "On the Subject of Poetry" and the macabre "Burning the Cat."
Beginning with "The Lice," he began to write without punctuation but with the passion of the 1960s about war, the destruction of the environment, and the human bewilderment about mortality. "The Last One" and "For the Anniversary of My Death" are here. Though he continued to experiment throughout his career, his voice began to steady and his treatment of the more general themes that drew me to him were expressed with greater and greater lucidity and music.
I usually read one or two poems in depth every morning, and glanced at the next.
When I glanced, I began by scanning. I asked: How long is it? How long are the lines? What is its shape? What jumps out at you? And then I put it aside. That initial encounter is simply like shaking the birthday present to see what's inside.
For the in-depth attack, I usually read the poem aloud to myself (Merwin's craft is far more apparent when you hear it). With a pencil, I marked the poem into sections (Merwin makes masterful use of turns) and asked, "Who is speaking? To whom? What does it remind me of? (His simplicity of diction is deceptive; the poems are laden with allusions to all manner of literature and life, even though he often uses a restricted vocabulary of recurring signs and motifs). Marking it into sections allowed me to see how he was developing the poem and bringing all its forces to bear on the often astonishing final lines.
Then I looked up the poem. Merwin's often-inscrutable, occasionally riddling style has attracted plenty of analysis by poets, critics, academics, and bloggers. Often, I found that someone else wrote about this particular poem, or that Merwin himself read it aloud in a videotaped or recorded interview and talked about it. I wrote more in the margins, and dogeared pages of poems I wanted to remember.
Merwin is not for everyone. He's bleak. I have said elsewhere that he is a "minor major poet" meaning that he doesn't have the popular appeal of those who are more famous, but as a former Poet Laureate and recipient of many major prizes he is without a doubt a major literary figure. It occurs to me that Merwin never made his living as a teacher, unlike many of his colleagues, and so lacks the efforts of acolytes that have promoted others. Also, (as of this writing) he is not dead and so cannot be properly laid to rest by would-be summarizers of his career. Despite his lifelong fascination with the possibility of mortality, the man kept going and kept writing poetry. This anthology was published in 2016 and the last selections are from Garden Time, also published in 2016 and full of gentle wonder that he is still here.
In short, the book is highly recommended, if you love poetry and if you take your time.
I never found it easy to navigate Merwin's other poems, and often gave up trying to understand them because I just didn't have the time or the patience. To be fair, relatively early in his career, he gave up punctuation except for the capital letter at the beginning, and though his poems are in complete sentences it requires careful reading, re-reading (and usually, reading aloud) to find out how they progress. That deliberately cryptic habit can be daunting.
I resolved this year to read something that is not social media first thing in the morning, and decided on this chronologically-arranged anthology, which I had bought in the hopeful belief that I could investigate Merwin with the respect I thought he might deserve. I took the book, a pencil, and my phone downstairs with me, opened the book at the beginning, and began to make my own attempts at reading carefully and closely.
I just completed reading it, now have 20 more "favorite" Merwin poems, and am sorry the journey is over. I learned a great deal about poetry in general, and specifically about Merwin's poetry, and it was time well spent.
The selected poems in this book span his career. I could have done without the translations, but they are representative of Merwin's interests (he is a prolific translator).
His earliest poems show knowledge of poetic forms, tremendous erudition, virtuosity, and self-importance, as I suppose the early poems of a young poet should. They cover many of the themes that appear in his later work, but they're sometimes overwrought. I loved "On the Subject of Poetry" and the macabre "Burning the Cat."
Beginning with "The Lice," he began to write without punctuation but with the passion of the 1960s about war, the destruction of the environment, and the human bewilderment about mortality. "The Last One" and "For the Anniversary of My Death" are here. Though he continued to experiment throughout his career, his voice began to steady and his treatment of the more general themes that drew me to him were expressed with greater and greater lucidity and music.
I usually read one or two poems in depth every morning, and glanced at the next.
When I glanced, I began by scanning. I asked: How long is it? How long are the lines? What is its shape? What jumps out at you? And then I put it aside. That initial encounter is simply like shaking the birthday present to see what's inside.
For the in-depth attack, I usually read the poem aloud to myself (Merwin's craft is far more apparent when you hear it). With a pencil, I marked the poem into sections (Merwin makes masterful use of turns) and asked, "Who is speaking? To whom? What does it remind me of? (His simplicity of diction is deceptive; the poems are laden with allusions to all manner of literature and life, even though he often uses a restricted vocabulary of recurring signs and motifs). Marking it into sections allowed me to see how he was developing the poem and bringing all its forces to bear on the often astonishing final lines.
Then I looked up the poem. Merwin's often-inscrutable, occasionally riddling style has attracted plenty of analysis by poets, critics, academics, and bloggers. Often, I found that someone else wrote about this particular poem, or that Merwin himself read it aloud in a videotaped or recorded interview and talked about it. I wrote more in the margins, and dogeared pages of poems I wanted to remember.
Merwin is not for everyone. He's bleak. I have said elsewhere that he is a "minor major poet" meaning that he doesn't have the popular appeal of those who are more famous, but as a former Poet Laureate and recipient of many major prizes he is without a doubt a major literary figure. It occurs to me that Merwin never made his living as a teacher, unlike many of his colleagues, and so lacks the efforts of acolytes that have promoted others. Also, (as of this writing) he is not dead and so cannot be properly laid to rest by would-be summarizers of his career. Despite his lifelong fascination with the possibility of mortality, the man kept going and kept writing poetry. This anthology was published in 2016 and the last selections are from Garden Time, also published in 2016 and full of gentle wonder that he is still here.
In short, the book is highly recommended, if you love poetry and if you take your time.
November 24, 2022
Het rond de pot draaien, ik kom er niet onderuit. Als ik niet op een woord kan komen, of ik kom niet uit mijn woorden, improviseren is de strohalm waar ik naar grijp. Is dat vervelend? Ja. Is het leuk? Niet onmiddellijk, maar soms wordt het dat wel in de loop van de improvisatie. Dan kom je erachter dat je veel meer wegen kunt bewandelen dan enkel de kortste, en dat je eigenlijk veel meer te vertellen hebt.
Vorige week zei iemand me dat poëzie zo banaal was. De hedendaagse poëzie, daar ging het over. Die niet rijmt. Het is zo weinig concreet. Ik begreep wat ze bedoelde. En ik begreep waarom ik het wel mooi vind. Niet alles natuurlijk, maar ik probeer een dichter te volgen over de met woorden nog niet, of anders bewandelde wegen van de taal. Het eindpunt is wellicht minder concreet, maar je weet, je voelt dat je er bent.
Ik heb geen literaire achtergrond. De poëtische basis is nog minder aanwezig. Dus namen, ik vang ze op hoe ze aan komen waaien. Geen idee hoe W.S. Merwin op mijn “te lezen” lijst terecht is gekomen. De titel, “The essential”. Eén van die boeken die je waarschijnlijk nooit zult lezen omdat het alleen in het Engels gepubliceerd is. Maar tot mijn grote verrassing kwam ik het een tijdje geleden in Bologna in een boekenzaak tegen. Het is in het Italiaans vertaald, dit jaar verscheen het eerste deel. Het tweede wordt in 2023 verwacht. Het mooie van veel van de in het Italiaans vertaalde dichtbundels is dat ze ook de originele tekst bevatten. Die staat dan op de linker bladzijde, de vertaling staat rechts. Je krijgt op die manier ook de kans op een kijkje in de keuken van de vertaler, ziet hoe die te werk gaat. Het voorwoord is vaak van de vertaler zelf, wat het dubbel interessant maakt.
William Stanley Merwin heeft (had, hij stierf in 2019, 91 jaren oud, twee Pulitzerprijzen op zijn naam) alles wat ik me voorstel van mooie poëzie. Geen korte wegen tussen a en b, maar het laveren tussen gedachten, gevoelens en dat verwoorden. Schrijven hoe je denkt, niet hoe je praat. Tussen het denken en het uitspreken zit een heel proces. Nevelslierten die over de zompige bodem van een moeras gedrapeerd zijn. Je doet twee stappen en alles verplaatst zich. Twee stappen terug, was dat hier? Daar waren woorden voor, die je uiteindelijk vindt.
Hij liep in de pas met de bewegingen die niet in de pas wilden lopen. Tegendraads. In de jaren zeventig schreef hij tegen de oorlog, in zijn werk uit de laatste decennia van zijn leven krijgt vooral het ontvluchten uit de gejaagde “modern world” ruimte. Hij was, als dichter, iemand die veel terugkeek op en inkeek in het leven. De diepste gedachten. Ja. Het essentiële.
W.S. Merwin – “L’essenziale” (2022)
●●●●● (5/5)
De volledige recensie, met prenten en fragmenten, vind je hier: https://rondetijd.blogspot.com/2022/1...
Vorige week zei iemand me dat poëzie zo banaal was. De hedendaagse poëzie, daar ging het over. Die niet rijmt. Het is zo weinig concreet. Ik begreep wat ze bedoelde. En ik begreep waarom ik het wel mooi vind. Niet alles natuurlijk, maar ik probeer een dichter te volgen over de met woorden nog niet, of anders bewandelde wegen van de taal. Het eindpunt is wellicht minder concreet, maar je weet, je voelt dat je er bent.
Ik heb geen literaire achtergrond. De poëtische basis is nog minder aanwezig. Dus namen, ik vang ze op hoe ze aan komen waaien. Geen idee hoe W.S. Merwin op mijn “te lezen” lijst terecht is gekomen. De titel, “The essential”. Eén van die boeken die je waarschijnlijk nooit zult lezen omdat het alleen in het Engels gepubliceerd is. Maar tot mijn grote verrassing kwam ik het een tijdje geleden in Bologna in een boekenzaak tegen. Het is in het Italiaans vertaald, dit jaar verscheen het eerste deel. Het tweede wordt in 2023 verwacht. Het mooie van veel van de in het Italiaans vertaalde dichtbundels is dat ze ook de originele tekst bevatten. Die staat dan op de linker bladzijde, de vertaling staat rechts. Je krijgt op die manier ook de kans op een kijkje in de keuken van de vertaler, ziet hoe die te werk gaat. Het voorwoord is vaak van de vertaler zelf, wat het dubbel interessant maakt.
William Stanley Merwin heeft (had, hij stierf in 2019, 91 jaren oud, twee Pulitzerprijzen op zijn naam) alles wat ik me voorstel van mooie poëzie. Geen korte wegen tussen a en b, maar het laveren tussen gedachten, gevoelens en dat verwoorden. Schrijven hoe je denkt, niet hoe je praat. Tussen het denken en het uitspreken zit een heel proces. Nevelslierten die over de zompige bodem van een moeras gedrapeerd zijn. Je doet twee stappen en alles verplaatst zich. Twee stappen terug, was dat hier? Daar waren woorden voor, die je uiteindelijk vindt.
Hij liep in de pas met de bewegingen die niet in de pas wilden lopen. Tegendraads. In de jaren zeventig schreef hij tegen de oorlog, in zijn werk uit de laatste decennia van zijn leven krijgt vooral het ontvluchten uit de gejaagde “modern world” ruimte. Hij was, als dichter, iemand die veel terugkeek op en inkeek in het leven. De diepste gedachten. Ja. Het essentiële.
W.S. Merwin – “L’essenziale” (2022)
●●●●● (5/5)
De volledige recensie, met prenten en fragmenten, vind je hier: https://rondetijd.blogspot.com/2022/1...
July 19, 2022
4.5 lots of lovelies and lots of similar poems but more lovely than not
September 4, 2022
Another disappointment ... while it was exciting to experience Merwin's transition from traditional free verse to what would become his reputable unpunctuated style which, sure, was considered experimental at that time, it became dry real quick when no experimentation followed that up. Every single poem is either a mere observation of various scenes in day-to-day life, or some random meditation Merwin had on something weird, with barely any intricacy or piercing insights to convince me of the beauty of the scenes and subject matters that were being poeticized and meditated on. Furthermore, each poem was either super long, or super short. The super long ones got dry real quick, and the super short ones sound like they can be written by my fourteen year-old cousin. Why Merwin was granted a Pulitzer baffles me ...
May 12, 2019
In my 65 years I've read almost everything I could find with very few exceptions. One of those exceptions is poetry, other than some old narrative poetry such as Homer or Dante. But when William Merwin died several weeks ago, I thought it might be an opportunity to make a serious attempt at enjoying it. I'm very glad I did. Merwin writes particularly well of the environment but for me personally, I enjoyed those melancholy poems about personal loss and memory. I will read these again and will look for other writers who can made the same kind of intellectual and emotional challenges.
July 22, 2018
I love this new to me poet. He has a connection to the earth that makes me resolve to ponder my earth beginnings and things like how long have men walked on the earth and whether soul comes from man's feet prints or colored images left behind under the sun's shadow. Can you see piecing together a chopped down tree and make it stand again. Did human's come from the earth and in that essence are we still part of earthly elements as in dust to dust return to the Terra which was the beginning.
March 25, 2018
A book you can't say you ever finish reading, but go back to many times.
July 25, 2019
Merwin, that's all need be said.
October 7, 2019
The old saying goes when in Rome, do as the Romans do. That may still hold true, but when I’m in Paris, I include a stop at Shakespeare and Company, the legendary bookstore close to the Seine. It’s no longer located where Sylvia Beach hosted Pound, Joyce, and a host of others, but it’s close enough (and you can browse through some of her own old books upstairs).
Negotiating the narrow aisles filled with other book-lovers takes some patience, as does finding what one is looking for along the crowded shelves. But on my latest venture there, I managed to find what I sought, a book on the history of Paris, and then — serendipity of serendipities — I found something I wasn’t looking for. Slightly disoriented, I found myself in the deepest recess of the shop, devoted to poetry. I wasn’t in the market for any, and if I were to purchase one, how to select? In the end, I think this book found me. My eyes roved the room, slightly dazed, then rested on the name Merwin printed in white letters on a black spine. A half-century ago, when I read a lot of poetry, he was one I read.
So I walked out of the store with two books.
This volume collects poems from throughout Merwin’s prolific career and is a good place to start reading him. From the aspiring young poet who wrote the carefully-structured and richly allusive “Dictum: For a Masque of Deluge,” to the poet who abandoned punctuation, which opened the possibility of a variety of readings, depending on how one combined adjacent words in one’s head. He soon employed this looser technique in vitriolic protest against war and environmental destruction, then lived long enough to use it to convey the poignancy and confusion of aging.
Along the way, there were recurring themes. One was the sense of irrevocable loss we’re inflicting on the planet. His prose-poem “Unchopping a Tree“ is no less urgent now, as fires devastate the rain forest than when it was written. Another is the fluidity of identity. In a variety of ways, the poet voices the feeling of being a stranger in familiar surroundings, ever on the verge of taking leave. Above all, there is Merwin’s fascination with language. Speaking not of himself, but of departed contemporary poets he admired, he writes: “the clear note they were hearing never promised anything but the true sound of brevity that will go on after me” (“Lament for the Makers”). Language is inexorably tied to existence, yet Merwin seems to be on a self-defeating quest: that even if one could hone language with precision — a daunting task, always out of reach — it would do nothing but depict transience and document our mutual incomprehension. Yet the struggle yields wonderful, life-affirming results.
Merwin is an elegist of the elusive, of that which is glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. At the same time, he somehow manages to convey a sense of timelessness.
I try to reserve a five-star rating for books that are not only excellent examples of their genre but that I feel everyone should read. I hesitated with this, knowing that even among the small tribe of readers, those who read poetry are a tiny subset. But I’m so high on this book I can’t give it less than five. Here’s a suggestion: take it off the shelf at a nearby bookstore or library, try just one, “Wild Oats,” for instance — or even the poem printed on the back cover, “Noah’s Raven.” I bought the book on the strength of that one poem; it was a good purchase.
Negotiating the narrow aisles filled with other book-lovers takes some patience, as does finding what one is looking for along the crowded shelves. But on my latest venture there, I managed to find what I sought, a book on the history of Paris, and then — serendipity of serendipities — I found something I wasn’t looking for. Slightly disoriented, I found myself in the deepest recess of the shop, devoted to poetry. I wasn’t in the market for any, and if I were to purchase one, how to select? In the end, I think this book found me. My eyes roved the room, slightly dazed, then rested on the name Merwin printed in white letters on a black spine. A half-century ago, when I read a lot of poetry, he was one I read.
So I walked out of the store with two books.
This volume collects poems from throughout Merwin’s prolific career and is a good place to start reading him. From the aspiring young poet who wrote the carefully-structured and richly allusive “Dictum: For a Masque of Deluge,” to the poet who abandoned punctuation, which opened the possibility of a variety of readings, depending on how one combined adjacent words in one’s head. He soon employed this looser technique in vitriolic protest against war and environmental destruction, then lived long enough to use it to convey the poignancy and confusion of aging.
Along the way, there were recurring themes. One was the sense of irrevocable loss we’re inflicting on the planet. His prose-poem “Unchopping a Tree“ is no less urgent now, as fires devastate the rain forest than when it was written. Another is the fluidity of identity. In a variety of ways, the poet voices the feeling of being a stranger in familiar surroundings, ever on the verge of taking leave. Above all, there is Merwin’s fascination with language. Speaking not of himself, but of departed contemporary poets he admired, he writes: “the clear note they were hearing never promised anything but the true sound of brevity that will go on after me” (“Lament for the Makers”). Language is inexorably tied to existence, yet Merwin seems to be on a self-defeating quest: that even if one could hone language with precision — a daunting task, always out of reach — it would do nothing but depict transience and document our mutual incomprehension. Yet the struggle yields wonderful, life-affirming results.
Merwin is an elegist of the elusive, of that which is glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. At the same time, he somehow manages to convey a sense of timelessness.
I try to reserve a five-star rating for books that are not only excellent examples of their genre but that I feel everyone should read. I hesitated with this, knowing that even among the small tribe of readers, those who read poetry are a tiny subset. But I’m so high on this book I can’t give it less than five. Here’s a suggestion: take it off the shelf at a nearby bookstore or library, try just one, “Wild Oats,” for instance — or even the poem printed on the back cover, “Noah’s Raven.” I bought the book on the strength of that one poem; it was a good purchase.
March 20, 2021
I had never read Merwin before this mostly because the scope of his output was intimidating to me. This collection made it possible for me to watch his idiosyncratic style germinate and bloom -- without having to live through the whole second half of the 20th century myself. So right off the bat, I want to say how grateful I am for Michael Weigers' work as an editor pulling this collection together.
As for Merwin himself, just wow. I'd seen his style described in many ways: it's "unpunctuated"; it's "open"; the words "lift off the page" -- and while these are all true, they don't really do justice to the thing itself, the way of speaking Merwin engendered from the mid 60s onward. The lack of punctuation is deceptive, in a way. It offers the illusion that these poems are organic or unadorned. What I found to be the case is that this restriction forced Merwin to be more formally precise with his line breaks, tonal shifts, etc. The lack of punctuation forces him to exert an immense control over the rhythm internal to each line.
With that said, the effect really is kind of magical. Since these lines, by themselves, have to carry so much variety, since so many voices are made to hold together together in single stanzas, it feels like these poems are alive. But I mean that word literally, and that's where the magic is: these poems, in the internal diversity of their sound, imitate life.
As for Merwin himself, just wow. I'd seen his style described in many ways: it's "unpunctuated"; it's "open"; the words "lift off the page" -- and while these are all true, they don't really do justice to the thing itself, the way of speaking Merwin engendered from the mid 60s onward. The lack of punctuation is deceptive, in a way. It offers the illusion that these poems are organic or unadorned. What I found to be the case is that this restriction forced Merwin to be more formally precise with his line breaks, tonal shifts, etc. The lack of punctuation forces him to exert an immense control over the rhythm internal to each line.
With that said, the effect really is kind of magical. Since these lines, by themselves, have to carry so much variety, since so many voices are made to hold together together in single stanzas, it feels like these poems are alive. But I mean that word literally, and that's where the magic is: these poems, in the internal diversity of their sound, imitate life.
Read
November 28, 2023One of my favorite collections of poetry. I worked through the poems in this collection very slowly throughout the spring and summer, reading and rereading and reading out loud. The poems here span something like 8 decades of writing but a but there are a few threads that seem to run through this huge collection— things like a mystical reverence for nature, existential musings on Time, and a deep love of the craft of writing,, he also has some heart wrenching poems about love and companionship; I especially love when a combination of these threads would weave through the same poem. It’s like Merwin had a lifelong curiosity revolving around those topics but his form and ideas were constantly developing.
(This book was gifted to me by a student after I wrote a letter of recommendation. More students should do this!)
(This book was gifted to me by a student after I wrote a letter of recommendation. More students should do this!)
February 9, 2021
How do you rate an 'essential' collection?
It's very good, and also very big, spanning a long career. Really wonderful to learn Merwin's poetry through this beautiful collection from Copper Canyon Press. I'm amazed by the variety of style that he wrote with.
For me, the very beginning and the end of his career were the most meaningful, with the middle - more politically focused - less powerful, perhaps because of time. Perhaps trying to read through it one poem at a time added some fatigue to my reading, which was heaviest in the he middle.
I'm excited to have this on my shelf to be able to return to at any time.
It's very good, and also very big, spanning a long career. Really wonderful to learn Merwin's poetry through this beautiful collection from Copper Canyon Press. I'm amazed by the variety of style that he wrote with.
For me, the very beginning and the end of his career were the most meaningful, with the middle - more politically focused - less powerful, perhaps because of time. Perhaps trying to read through it one poem at a time added some fatigue to my reading, which was heaviest in the he middle.
I'm excited to have this on my shelf to be able to return to at any time.
Want to read
February 13, 2021-----
2/12/21—I was considering getting rid of The Turtle Warrior from my home collection, but was torn. A review I was glancing at mentioned a poem at the beginning. It made me think of Mary Oliver (what poem wouldn't, if it has something from nature and is more or less free, since I haven't read much poetry) and I thought I rather liked it. So I looked up the author and am TBRing a couple of his books (this and Moon Before Morning for now). Maybe I'll get to them someday. Update: Adding the Shadow of Sirius, too, as that's a Pulitzer winner and maybe the Moon collection is an elaboration of it.
2/12/21—I was considering getting rid of The Turtle Warrior from my home collection, but was torn. A review I was glancing at mentioned a poem at the beginning. It made me think of Mary Oliver (what poem wouldn't, if it has something from nature and is more or less free, since I haven't read much poetry) and I thought I rather liked it. So I looked up the author and am TBRing a couple of his books (this and Moon Before Morning for now). Maybe I'll get to them someday. Update: Adding the Shadow of Sirius, too, as that's a Pulitzer winner and maybe the Moon collection is an elaboration of it.
May 28, 2024
One of my favorite poets - this was a reread. Still makes me cry. So many bookmarked poems on love, nature, language, war, loss. His translations have a unique rhythm and respect for the untranslatable. Some of his earlier poems are a bit too intellectual for me, but they become more sparse and poignant with time. Reading it in order (and having some context about his life/American history) really effectively conveys the grief and beauty of growing older and seeing so much of life. It's even more moving knowing that he did hands-on conservation and restoration of the Hawai'ian rainforest at the end of his life - he took his reflections and turned them into action.
December 8, 2024
First off the quality of the edition is superb. Canyon Press does a wonderful job of creating quality books. As to the text, I have been a fan of Merwin's for many years. His translations are very good but only a few are included in this edition. What is provided is very nice. His own work I enjoy but many poems seem more like quizzes than emotional statements. The first book I read by him was the Lice, and that remains the book that contains the majority of poems that I return to. He is a poet who never stopped developing and growing. This is a book to treasure and to reread often.
May 17, 2022
Collection of W.S. Merwin poems. I only liked 23 of them, which is a rather small percentage considering how many poems are in here. His style seems very scattered to me. Sometimes I think he’s leading to an interesting twist at the end of a poem that brings the whole thing together but he doesn’t. They often end randomly. A little too confusing for me overall. Hard to find things to connect with. But Dad bought me the set of poems, so there’s sentimentality.
August 3, 2023
Merwin is in my personal pantheon, and while I typically try to avoid collections this one is great for visualizing Merwin’s structural development as a poet (in the late 60s when he drops punctuation it’s jarring!)
Glad this also included a few of his translations. Merwin’s poetry under the influence of his translations is a great argument for the practice of translation as a writing apprenticeship
Glad this also included a few of his translations. Merwin’s poetry under the influence of his translations is a great argument for the practice of translation as a writing apprenticeship
April 12, 2019
It’s a strange and wonderful thing to read a book like this from beginning to end, for pleasure rather than academic study— there’s no obligation to understand, just enjoy. This collection really highlights how the poetry changes in theme and technique, but also gives a strong sense of what remains constant in Merwin’s work.
April 28, 2019
I have to make a habit of knowing the great poets before they die. After Merwin's death last month, I picked up this compilation and have been wowed by its candor and beauty. Comprised of original poems and translations for other writers, Merwin's singular focus on the mystery behind all living things shines through with every verse.
July 27, 2024
I had previously not heard of this poet until I received this book as a gift from my brother. The 6 or 7 volumes it covers. I had great fun working through the nuances of each period for his writing. His unpunctuated poems are cerebral & thought provoking to nature, to the human condition and how the story of life unfolds.
November 21, 2019
A more “essential” book could have been five stars. As is, this is a fine “selected” covering the span of Merwin’s career. A shorter book could’ve been less inclusive and better, focusing on the outstanding moments—“The Last One,” “Yesterday”—and let them truly shine.
August 8, 2020
An extraordinary collection of mesmerizing, poems that touch all of my senses, filling me with memories of my past, my ancestors, my life now and in my aging years ... with the poignancy that his words captures nature and connects it to my soul.
November 14, 2020
Wide-ranging in theme, form, emotion and time of writing. This giant of American poetry is offered richly in a hefty compilation that includes a few photos for context and connection with the man. A lovely volume.
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July 3, 2023"Thanks" is a stunnerrrrrrr. Cool to watch a poet's style over time. The last poem, close to Merwin's death, also just says it all for me:
Wish
Please one more
kiss in the kitchen
before we turn the lights off
Wish
Please one more
kiss in the kitchen
before we turn the lights off
June 6, 2024
This is one of my favourite collections of poetry ever--a poet I was late to properly discover. I read poetry collections randomly, and yes, I dogear pages (if it's my book). I am constantly returning to marvelous poems I've already marked, but also keep finding new gems.
February 12, 2022
Brilliant. Simply brilliant
February 20, 2023
Provides an excellent introduction to Merwin's poetic career.
July 13, 2023
4.25, what a life
October 30, 2024
Incredibly beautiful and simple poetry
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