On the Poetic Legacy of W.S. Merwin / John Freeman. In: Lit Hub March 19, 2019

In 2013, at an age past which most people live, W.S. Merwin published three books. One of them was a 1,500-page Collected Poems with Library of America, which even as it landed was out of date. A new volume was already scheduled for 2015. Others would follow. Just last month yet another book of prose arrived, full of Merwin’s account of meeting Pound, tales of translation woe, tiny shards of memory from travels long ago. This constant production, which in a writer like Updike could feel like mania, in Merwin felt proof that the meaning of living was to search, and the search could not end until he did. I carried these LOA volumes—and another 40 or 50—around for a year as I wrote the following essay*, surprised that the deeper I hiked into Merwin country, the less I felt I was in his territory. But rather the world itself opening up for me, his voice, his story, his words, like lamplights. Merwin’s search ended last week when he died at age 91. The lamp burns brightly still.

*Originally appeared in the Fall 2013 issue of The Virginia Quarterly Review. ... [mehr] https://lithub.com/on-the-poetic-legacy-of-w-s-merwin/