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The Pupil: Poems
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and “one of the greatest poets of our age … the Thoreau of our era” (Edward Hirsch) comes a volume of astonishing range and extraordinary a major literary event that captures the spiritual anguish of our time.
Hailed 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. 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 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
... 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.
Hailed 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. 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 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
... 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.
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
About the author
W.S. Merwin
193 books350 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 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 30, 2023
metric for enjoyment/wonder = dog eared pages
evidence = many dog ears.
the end.
evidence = many dog ears.
the end.
March 23, 2026
A stunning collection of middle/late Merwin that somehow slipped through the cracks for me and was found at my little local library much to my delight. Merwin's late works The Moon before Morning and Garden Time (my favorite, Merwin having certainly saved the best for last) were composed as Merwin was going blind and it is conceivable that such a disability might predicate a distilled quality or a kind of coerced clarity to a poet's pen.
The Pupil is a diverse collection without a unifying thread, though it doesn't feel disjointed, but instead contributes to the overall vibrancy of the work. There are poems on Spring, Late Song, Worn, First Sight; several references to the separable entities of the object and its sound, which Merwin uses to convey longing and distance, such as in Once in Spring "the cuckoo hiding behind its voice"; and in Migrants by Air, "the roar of surf lifts from them to roll on without them as they break in the foam". There are several powerful reminders of Merwin's devotion to conservationism, such as in Feast Day, Downstream, Good People, Earlier.
The Pupil is excellent and happily less opaque than his earlier work, which initially comes across as impenetrable, unpunctuated word fortresses. Not that the fortress isn't worth penetrating, only that I simply didn't understand much of it. Perhaps I'm just dumb, or also, perhaps his style has always been decidedly elusive to throw a veil over meaning, thereby summoning an air of mystery, and leaving it up to interpretation, and often reminding the reader that there is so much unknown and unknowable, incommunicable and silent.
Things fold (sheep, cliffs) and wrap (rivers, days) in typical Merwin fashion which lends a surreal and kinetic quality to the objects. There's a beautiful ode to spiders, "mothers of silence" [...] patient guardians". Hints of forthcoming Garden Time era poems can be found in pieces like A Death in the Desert, The Hollow in the Stone, Planh for the Death of Ted Hughes, Wings where Merwin wears his heart clearly on his sleeve. There's also a particularly touching poem, Fence for Mathew Shepard, which I didn't even know existed and must have been written around the time of his murder.
Merwin's poetry is dazzling and often heartbreaking and brutal; he is one of the greatest poets of all time. If you haven't read him, read him in reverse is my advice, and then start from the beginning and go forward again.
Unknown Bird
Out of the dry days
through the dusty leaves
far across the valley
those few notes never
heard here before
one fluted phrase
floating over its
wandering secret
all at once wells up
somewhere else
and is gone before it
goes on fallen into
its own echo leaving
a hollow through the air
that is dry as before
where is it from
hardly anyone
seems to have noticed it
so far but who now
would have been listening
it is not native here
that may be the one
thing we are sure of
it came from somewhere
else perhaps alone
so keeps on calling for
no one who is here
hoping to be heard
by another of its own
unlikely origin
trying once more the same few
notes that began the song
of an oriole last heard
years ago in another
existence there
it goes again tell
no one it is here
foreign as we are
who are filling the days
with a sound of our own
The Pupil is a diverse collection without a unifying thread, though it doesn't feel disjointed, but instead contributes to the overall vibrancy of the work. There are poems on Spring, Late Song, Worn, First Sight; several references to the separable entities of the object and its sound, which Merwin uses to convey longing and distance, such as in Once in Spring "the cuckoo hiding behind its voice"; and in Migrants by Air, "the roar of surf lifts from them to roll on without them as they break in the foam". There are several powerful reminders of Merwin's devotion to conservationism, such as in Feast Day, Downstream, Good People, Earlier.
The Pupil is excellent and happily less opaque than his earlier work, which initially comes across as impenetrable, unpunctuated word fortresses. Not that the fortress isn't worth penetrating, only that I simply didn't understand much of it. Perhaps I'm just dumb, or also, perhaps his style has always been decidedly elusive to throw a veil over meaning, thereby summoning an air of mystery, and leaving it up to interpretation, and often reminding the reader that there is so much unknown and unknowable, incommunicable and silent.
Things fold (sheep, cliffs) and wrap (rivers, days) in typical Merwin fashion which lends a surreal and kinetic quality to the objects. There's a beautiful ode to spiders, "mothers of silence" [...] patient guardians". Hints of forthcoming Garden Time era poems can be found in pieces like A Death in the Desert, The Hollow in the Stone, Planh for the Death of Ted Hughes, Wings where Merwin wears his heart clearly on his sleeve. There's also a particularly touching poem, Fence for Mathew Shepard, which I didn't even know existed and must have been written around the time of his murder.
Merwin's poetry is dazzling and often heartbreaking and brutal; he is one of the greatest poets of all time. If you haven't read him, read him in reverse is my advice, and then start from the beginning and go forward again.
Unknown Bird
Out of the dry days
through the dusty leaves
far across the valley
those few notes never
heard here before
one fluted phrase
floating over its
wandering secret
all at once wells up
somewhere else
and is gone before it
goes on fallen into
its own echo leaving
a hollow through the air
that is dry as before
where is it from
hardly anyone
seems to have noticed it
so far but who now
would have been listening
it is not native here
that may be the one
thing we are sure of
it came from somewhere
else perhaps alone
so keeps on calling for
no one who is here
hoping to be heard
by another of its own
unlikely origin
trying once more the same few
notes that began the song
of an oriole last heard
years ago in another
existence there
it goes again tell
no one it is here
foreign as we are
who are filling the days
with a sound of our own
March 24, 2019
I like some of Merwin's poems very much, but it can be too much to sit and read an entire book in one sitting. The power of their spare style becomes opaque and hard to focus on. In this book I especially love "The Lights of Marfa" and a few others.
July 13, 2018
Brilliant.
Favorites include “Once in Spring,” “Wings,” “One of the Laws,” “Good People,” “The Fence.”
Favorites include “Once in Spring,” “Wings,” “One of the Laws,” “Good People,” “The Fence.”
May 26, 2024
Typically strong book of poetry from Merwin; a return to form after the longer poems of The Folding Cliffs (one long epic poem) and The River Sound (which featured 3 long poems).
January 1, 2018
Just picked this up because it seemed like a good poetry read. But was not all that moved by the poems. Although they were beautiful and nice to read.
January 19, 2011
I am going to write this although I am only 3/4s of the way finished.
Despite having found 2 poems that I particularly enjoy, and appreciating Merwin's often simple, yet profound, choice of subjects, I am not enjoying this book.
The poems are all written in lower case with no punctuation, and most lines are enjambed. While this cluster of techniques can often be effective they also depend somewhat for their effectiveness on the reader being able to easily parse out where the pauses and stops are. In these poems, Merwin seems to delight in the perversity of making this ambiguous at best and downright hard at worst. This would be fine if reading these poems were to be an academic exercise, but I am reading them for pleasure. Or, more accurately, I am not finding pleasure in them despite their potential to delight. Generally, I feel, a poet needs to meet the reader halfway and Merwin refused to do so in this book.
Amended to add: The above issue is primarily in the many poems that are not divided into stanzas, although it bleeds into some of those also.
Despite having found 2 poems that I particularly enjoy, and appreciating Merwin's often simple, yet profound, choice of subjects, I am not enjoying this book.
The poems are all written in lower case with no punctuation, and most lines are enjambed. While this cluster of techniques can often be effective they also depend somewhat for their effectiveness on the reader being able to easily parse out where the pauses and stops are. In these poems, Merwin seems to delight in the perversity of making this ambiguous at best and downright hard at worst. This would be fine if reading these poems were to be an academic exercise, but I am reading them for pleasure. Or, more accurately, I am not finding pleasure in them despite their potential to delight. Generally, I feel, a poet needs to meet the reader halfway and Merwin refused to do so in this book.
Amended to add: The above issue is primarily in the many poems that are not divided into stanzas, although it bleeds into some of those also.
March 24, 2013
This, with "The Shadow of Sirius" are probably the two books of poetry I have been the most caught up in a very long time. Before these, for me, was John Donne.
In my review of "The Shadow of Sirius," I call this "easy" poetry for its accessibility. I urge you to get that from it, and then let it soak into you, or vise versa.
To boot, Mr. Merwin is an exceptionally pleasant and warm fellow in person.
In my review of "The Shadow of Sirius," I call this "easy" poetry for its accessibility. I urge you to get that from it, and then let it soak into you, or vise versa.
To boot, Mr. Merwin is an exceptionally pleasant and warm fellow in person.
February 20, 2008
My favorite poem: "The Night Plums"... my favorite line: "when the stones of the barnyard lay buried in sleep..." - it just drops on and off the tongue with a graceful bounce.
August 2, 2008
oh white lemurs who invented the dance
this is the time afterward
can you hear me
who invented the story
part of the story
this is the time afterward
can you hear me
who invented the story
part of the story
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews