W. S. Merwin

Last week on Bill Moyer’s Journal on PBS he interviewed the Pulitzer Prize winning poet W. S. Merwin. I admit I have never heard of him before. It was a joy listening to him.
He spoke of the power of poetry and what it has to offer to us. Of the many topics, they spoke about the magic of Shakespeare.

He talked about a poem ‘working’. He speaks about the idea that when a poem works then there are no words that can be changed. This caught me because words that don’t work often jump out at me in my own work. Not until I change that word am I happy with the line.

He talks about loss, grief and lament. They discuss a poem about a father and his grown son visiting. The father thinks that the son wants to leave and even though the son does not need to leave, he does. He laments that decision.

Here is one piece that he read on the show. The formatting is mine.



Youth
Through all of youth I was looking for you
Without knowing what I was looking for
Or what to call you
I don’t think I even knew I was looking
Would I have known you when I saw you as I did
Time after time when you appeared to me
As you did
Naked, offering yourself entirely at that moment
And you let me breath you, touch you, taste you,
Knowing no more than I did
And only when I began to think of losing you
Did I recognize you
When you were already part memory
Part distance
Remaining mine in the ways that I learned to miss you
From what we can not hold the stars are made

You can get Bill Moyer's show on podcast, either video or audio. That is how I listen to it since his show is on too late for me.

posted by Ethan