The rain in the trees: poemsA literary event -- a new volume of poems by one of the masters of modern poetry -- The Rain in the Trees is W. S. Merwin's first book since the publication five years ago of his Opening the Hand. Almost no other poet of our time has been able to voice in so subtle a fashion such a profound series of comments on the passing of history over the contemporary scene. To do this, he seems to have reinvented the poem -- so that the experience of reading Merwin is unlike the reading of any other poetry. In such famous books as The Lice, The Moving Target and (most recently) Opening the Hand, he has produced a body of work of great profundity and power made from the simplest and most beautiful poetic speech. The poems in this new book are concerned with intimacy and wholeness, and are made of the relations with people, with places, past and present, and with history and how the world endures it. Merwin can now rightfully be called a master, and this book shows in every way why this is the case. |
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The rain in the trees: poems
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictFive years after his last collection, Pulitzer Prize-winner Merwin offers no surprises, just the same steady hand and vision we have come to expect from one of the giants of contemporary American ... Read full review
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Common terms and phrases
apricots ARCHAIC MAKER autumn believed birds black river blackberries breath cars climbing color color of water comes the white Dancing Bears 1954 dark dead door doorways dreamed earth echoing everything faces fallen father ferns flying foot foreign forests glass Green with Beasts gulls hands Hawaii hear island Journey knew language late leaves limestone listen lives look low green moon morning mother mountain Moving Target 1963 names never night wind Nobodv remembers ohias Osip Mandelstam passing pasture piece of paper rain river road sacred sandalwood saying thank scaffolding seen Selected Poems Selected Translations shadow slope smell Song Song of Roland sound stone story street summer tell thev things thought toad TOUCHING THE TREE travelled turn valley W. S. Merwin wait wake wakened walk wall wanted watching waves woke words York City
Bibliographic information
| Title | The rain in the trees: poems |
| Author | William Stanley Merwin |
| Publisher | Knopf, 1988 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | Mar 11, 2008 |
| ISBN | 0394570391, 9780394570396 |
| Length | 78 pages |
| Subjects | › › American poetry Poetry / American / General Poetry / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |