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 appears began beginning believe bells birds breath bright bringing calling carried caught clear cliffs closed clouds cold colors coming dance dark death dogs door eyes face falling father feeling field figures FLOWER followed friends glass gone gray green hand happened hear heard holding hour keep knew known late later leaves light listen live looking MICHIGAN morning mountains moving never night notes older once ourselves pain passing past playing POEMS present rain recognize remember rising river season seems seen shadow shining sight silent singing sleep somewhere song sound speaking spring standing stars stone stop story street summer telling things thought touch traveled trees turned unseen valley voices waiting walk wanderers watching whole window winter youth