Hello
Gentle Reader
Of
the twentieth century American poets, there are few giants and greats. Among
their number include the indisputable and transatlantic poets: T.S. Eliot
(Nobel Laureate) and W.H. Auden; as well as the great African American poet and
memoirist, Maya Angelou; the complicated, the beatnik and bohemian poet of an
America liberated, Allen Ginsberg; the divisive, confessional and tragic Sylia
Plath; the poet who dances with fire, Sharon Olds; the complex and academic postmodernist
Susan Howe; the naturalist and curious commentator of animal life, Mary Oliver;
and the divisively uncertain postmodern surrealist John Ashbery, who remains
controversial even after his last breath drawn, perplexing and infuriating
critics. Among this pantheon of great poets of American literature of the twentieth
century and early twenty-first century is: W.S. Merwin, who died March 15th
2019, at the age of 91 in his home in Hawaii.
Since
his youth, W.S. Merwin was in possession of two inclinations and interests,
which came forth through his talents of language. The first was his enamored
admiration for the natural world, where as a child Merwin had been noted taking
a keen interest in the natural world, going as far as having conversations with
old trees in his family’s backyard. The second was a fascination with links and
monuments to the past. Those ever unflinching and fanatical staunch signs of
solidarity, who resist the corrosion of time and history, to remain resilient
and resisting to the sweet coercion and passing’s, while solidifying with stone
like memory of notice and mark to what had existed. In his youth, Merwin showed
an innate feeling and talent for language, whereby he composed and wrote hymns
for his father, a Presbyterian minister. These talents of his youth and his
noted interest in the fragile and withstanding natural world would later shape
the poet and writer he would become.
Along
with John Ashbery, W.S. Merwin is often credited as being one of the most
distinct and defining voices of American poetry and literature in the twentieth
century. His poems from the Vietnam War Era and generation gained immediate recognition
alongside Adrienne Rich and Allen Ginsberg. Yet, his poetry was all his own,
and was renowned for its plain spoken form which was sprinkled with grace and mysticism
which came from his interest in Buddhism. His poetry could move between
cautious optimism to elegiac forewarning, as he praised the natural world
begging in silence to be saved, and yet stationary as it’s ripped up, burned
down, chopped up and done away with. Merwin spent a career forcing his readers
to find introspection and then understand the world was falling apart around
them, but not by some celestial or external chaotic force, but by their own two
hands or their own two feet. Despite his environmental insight (or perhaps for
it) W.S. Merwin won the Pultizer Prize twice as well as the National Book Award
for Poetry, and was named the Poet Laureate of the United States, from
two-thousand and ten until two-thousand and eleven.
Throughout
his career, W.S. Merwin was a striking and powerful voice for conservation, environmental
sustainability, political pacifism and deep introspective philosophical
ponderings. His mark on poetry and American Poetry cannot be overlooked or swept
aside. His passing though will leave a massive void, which can only be filled
by his long lasting and enduring poetic compositions and volumes of writing.
Rest
in Peace, W.S Merwin
Thank-you
For Reading Gentle Reader
Take
Care
And
As Always
Stay
Well Read
M.
Mary
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