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Flower & Hand: Poems, 1977-1983
Brings back into print all the poems from The Compass Flower (1977), Feathers from the Hill (1981), and Opening the Hand (1983).
- GenresPoetry
175 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
About the author
W.S. Merwin
192 books352 followersWilliam Stanley Merwin was an American poet, credited with over fifty books of poetry, translation and prose.
William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests.
Merwin received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971 and 2009; the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005, and the Tanning Prize—one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets—as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the Library of Congress named him the 17th United States Poet Laureate.
William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests.
Merwin received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971 and 2009; the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005, and the Tanning Prize—one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets—as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the Library of Congress named him the 17th United States Poet Laureate.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 25, 2026
Reread “Opening the Hand”
March 6, 2025
At this point I don't mind admitting W.S. Merwin is my favorite American poet. He is certainly the poet I have read the most in my recent life. This volume collects 3 books following the ones collected in The Second Four Books by Copper Canyon Press: The Compass Flower (1977), Feathers from the Hill (1978), and Opening the Hand (1983). Across all three volumes there is hardly a weak entry. In fact, I found some poems here that I can designate among my favorites from Merwin.
In this collection he continues to innovate styles, as he constantly did, to find ways of describing something just out of reach. Long gone is the clever and very intellectual interiority of his first books, replaced with something much more profound and of the heart. Feathers from the Hill is published as the first section of Finding the Islands (North Point Press, 1982) and though I had read it in that context, I was happy to read these poems again in the context of this span of work. Although I appreciated them before, this time around I really got into his work with poems built out of 3 line stanzas, which strive to enlighten, as a haiku will do, using a brief triad of images.
In my opinion, his poem In the Red Mountains is the pinnacle of his effort. The poem also showcases his interest in exploring the interactions between the sensual, the pastoral, and the metaphysical.
The poem continues for 16 more gorgeous stanzas, building to a crescendo before coming to rest. It is a magnificent poem and I could happily copy out the entire book as example after example of the way Merwin has moved me.
The narrators he used to craft his poems are so compelling to me. One could be a single observer, alone and quiet, as in Feathers from the Hill, but another, a persona much more vulnerable and even a bit neurotic in his reflections. The voice he used in Opening the Hand, for example, is so touching and recognizable that some of these poems stopped me and held me still for a few moments. My favorite of these was The Truth of Departure, an appropriate one to end this review because by the time I got to it, the long journey from the first page of the collection had prepared me for everything he wanted to say but could only describe in absence. This yearning, the now easy way it relates the natural world and the civilized one with a cumulative loss that makes up the human experience is so poignant in its expression through the absolutely ordinary that I couldn't help find all these ideas within myself through the same lingering question asked in the poem, one particularly relevant today: what will become of it all?
Sunset Water
How white my father looked in the water
all his life he swam doggie paddle
holding hurried breaths steering an embarrassed smile
long after he has gone I rock in smooth waves near the edge of the sea
at the foot of a hill I never saw before
or so I imagine as the sun is setting
sharp evening birds and voices of children
echo each other across the water
one by one the red waves out of themselves reach through me
In this collection he continues to innovate styles, as he constantly did, to find ways of describing something just out of reach. Long gone is the clever and very intellectual interiority of his first books, replaced with something much more profound and of the heart. Feathers from the Hill is published as the first section of Finding the Islands (North Point Press, 1982) and though I had read it in that context, I was happy to read these poems again in the context of this span of work. Although I appreciated them before, this time around I really got into his work with poems built out of 3 line stanzas, which strive to enlighten, as a haiku will do, using a brief triad of images.
In my opinion, his poem In the Red Mountains is the pinnacle of his effort. The poem also showcases his interest in exploring the interactions between the sensual, the pastoral, and the metaphysical.
In the Red Mountains
Blue chairs hang empty
waiting in clear
September sky
--
Daybreak mist in valley
skylark rises
through green floor of cloud
--
Light evening rain
eleven magpies
dance in twilight
--
Yellow light
memory in aspens
of first frost
--
Chain saw three minutes
hours later in rain
smell of resin
--
Wrinkled mountains
end of autumn day
peach down
--
The colors move
but not
the evening clouds
--
Moth shadow circles floor
moth alights
by my foot
--
Through black pines
colors on the mountain
climb down the days
The poem continues for 16 more gorgeous stanzas, building to a crescendo before coming to rest. It is a magnificent poem and I could happily copy out the entire book as example after example of the way Merwin has moved me.
The narrators he used to craft his poems are so compelling to me. One could be a single observer, alone and quiet, as in Feathers from the Hill, but another, a persona much more vulnerable and even a bit neurotic in his reflections. The voice he used in Opening the Hand, for example, is so touching and recognizable that some of these poems stopped me and held me still for a few moments. My favorite of these was The Truth of Departure, an appropriate one to end this review because by the time I got to it, the long journey from the first page of the collection had prepared me for everything he wanted to say but could only describe in absence. This yearning, the now easy way it relates the natural world and the civilized one with a cumulative loss that makes up the human experience is so poignant in its expression through the absolutely ordinary that I couldn't help find all these ideas within myself through the same lingering question asked in the poem, one particularly relevant today: what will become of it all?
The Truth of Departure
With each journey it gets
worse
what kind of learning is that
when that is what we are born for
and harder and harder to find
what is hanging on
to what
all day it has been raining
and I have been writing letters
the pearl curtains
stroking the headlands
under immense dark clouds
the valley sighing with rain
everyone home and quiet
what will become of all these
things that I see
that are here and are me
and I am none of them
what will become
of the bench and the teapot
the pencils and the kerosene lamps
all the books all the writing
the green of the leaves
what becomes of the house
and the island
and the sound of your footstep
who knows it is here
who says it will stay
who says I will know it
who said it would be all right
October 2, 2024
loved first section & also the poem of him seeing his dad's hands bro. some tears. some absent flowers whose voice i could hear. but there were also a few too many poems where i felt an ending clinch was missing--it felt like just as the poem came into being it fizzled out--i mean this is my definition of a good poem so i guess it stopped just short of coming into being, not settling into its full form in a way. as if the observation itself was left half-perceived & i was supposed to supply it but couldn't... what a martyred reading i have performed here. but yeah pared down to a fault in some places, i thought !
December 27, 2022
Feathers from the Hill, which has only been collected here to my knowledge, is a compilation of long poems using Haiku-like stanzas. It's not my favorite Merwin to be honest, but it's always cool to see an artist you love doing something atypical for them.
January 3, 2018
About having read poems not found in any of his books, under a selection called: Feathers From the Hill (1978).
June 17, 2018
A collection of three books by Merwin from around 1980. The style of his that I find so striking appears here for the first time I know of in Feathers From the Hill.
August 8, 2010
Merwin's still growing on me, but I think I like...
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April 29, 2013811.54 M576fh 1997
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews