THE POEM FOREST

A portrait of a man whose life comprised a love of nature and poetry.

William Stanley Merwin (1927-2019) grew up in a town where everything was “straightened out” by the boundaries of homes and roads. Even as a boy, he yearned for wilderness and was fortunate to spend summers vacationing in a cabin in the woods. Merwin also enjoyed composing poems; he found that “writing poetry was like visiting a wild place…[with] language growing wherever it pleased.” Fountain omits the years Merwin spent with his first two wives in Spain and London and fast-forwards to Hawaii. There, instead of the wild land he sought, he purchased a “wounded” space, “stripped of all its rich, dark soil.” He lived in a sustainable home with his third wife and started growing palm trees, eventually planting almost 3,000, including endangered varieties sent from around the world. Fountain leans toward longer sentences, layering ideas with metaphors to effectively convey Merwin’s hope and curiosity. The digital illustrations are reminiscent of Aaron Douglas paintings; many of the compositions contain purple and green silhouettes of people and overlapping branches with varying degrees of saturation to create a sense of depth. Darker, leafy branches border many of the compositions. The White poet/gardener stayed involved with both passions, ultimately donating his land to a conservancy and becoming the United States Poet Laureate. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A sensitive exploration of an untidy, meaningful existence.