Cooper Renner’s Reviews > Collected Poems 1952–1993 > Status Update

Now reading Travels, the latest book in the collection and the only one I haven't read yet. More rooted in ordinary reality, and less "oracular," than much of Merwin's earlier verse--at least so far--I've got about 80% of the book to go.

Read most of Dancing Bears (second book) but quit at the second of the 3 Cansos that end the book. Too much mellifluity for its own sake. Abstracted, knotted, "pretty".

Finished up Rain in the Trees. A mixed bag of poems; some apparently personal; others seemingly related to Hawaiian history, ecological concerns, etc. Sometimes more direct than Merwin's "high" period, sometimes just as oblique, images which feel attached to almost nothing on earth.

Now reading Rain in the Trees, which begins with poems that once again seem more "human", reflecting aspects of Merwin's own past.

I've finished Opening the Hand, which is a much more "ordinary" book than the earlier Merwin--poems about recognizable human events, 3rd person characters, less cryptic and dream-like. One poem is based out of a memory dealt with in prose in Summer Doorways; another seems to be a personal account of a pet dog. Interesting and enjoyable.

I've now begun reading Opening the Hand. The early poems in the book are very different from earlier Merwin (except for some of Drunk in the Furnace). Colloquial and a bit oblique, but also strongly rooted in family history, parent-child relationships, i.e. in recognizable human relations. And not done cheesily or sentimentally, but with restraint. "Yesterday" is especially powerful.

Finished Compass Flower. The modern world shows up here--Merwin's nouns tend to be "timeless" or outside modern civilization, but there is a mix here. A 3-star volume.