The Pupil: PoemsHailed by Peter Davison in the Boston Sunday Globe as a poet who “engages the underground stream of our lives at depths that only two or three living poets can match,” W. S. Merwin now gives us The Pupil, a volume of astonishing range and extraordinary beauty: a major literary event. These are poems of great lyrical intensity, concerned with darkness and light, with the seasons, and with the passing of time across landscapes that are both vast and minutely imagined. They capture the spiritual anguish of our time; the bittersweet joys of vanishing wilderness; anger at our political wrong- doings; the sensuality that memory can engender. Here are remembrances of the poet’s youth, lyrics on the loss of loved ones, echoes from the surfaces of the natural world. Here, too, is the poet’s sense of a larger mystery: . . . we know from the beginning that the darkness is beyond us there is no explaining the dark it is only the light that we keep feeling a need to account for —from “The Marfa Lights” Passionate, rigorous, and quietly profound, The Pupil is an essential addition to the canon of contemporary American poetry—a book that finds W. S. Merwin’s singularly resonant voice at the height of its power. From the Hardcover edition. |
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afterward animals ash trees ASIAN awake barbed wire beginning believe bells birds breath build an ark burning calling cliffs climbed clouds cold colors coming cowrie dance dark dogs door echoes eyes face father fluted geese glass gone gray green hand hear heard hour knew known late leaves lemurs who invented light listen live looking Marietta Mendelssohn MICHIGAN morning mountains moving never night notes older once ourselves passing Perdita plovers rain recognize remember rising river sea cliffs season seems seen SELECTED POEMS shadow shining sight silent singing sleep sloe solstice someone somewhere song Sonnet sound speaking spring stairs staring stars stone story street streetcars summer taught telling things touch turned typeface Union City unseen valley voices W. S. Merwin waiting wake wanderers watching whole window wings winter words youth