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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air comes apricots ARCHAIC MAKER autumn believed birds black river blackberries breath cars climbing color color of water comes the white dark dead door doorways dreamed earth echoing everything faces fallen father ferns flying foot foreign forests glass Green with Beasts gulls hands hear HORIZONS OF ROOMS island Journey knew language late leaves listen lives look low green Mask for Janus moon morning mother mountain names never night wind ohias Osip Mandelstam passing pasture piece of paper rain REC'D APR 15 remember river road sacred sandalwood saying thank scaffolding seen Selected Poems Selected Translations 1968-1978 shadow slope smell Song Song of Roland sound stone story street summer tell things thought TOUCHING THE TREE turn UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA valley W. S. Merwin wait wake wakened walk wall wanted watching waves woke words York City