Afternoon with W.S. Merwin

Photo: Shabda Kahn

by Kyra Epstein

VIEW THE VIDEO OF THIS EVENT (begin with 2nd video)

It’s not often that the poet laureate of the United States pays you a visit. Even more rare, there was no charge to attend the event in February of 2011 at The New School at Commonweal in Bolinas, California.

Unsurprisingly, it was a little overwhelming for me (as the coordinator of the event) and the staff at Commonweal. Within hours of posting the event on our website and in our newsletter, we had filled to capacity, with even more on a waiting list. As the months, weeks, days passed leading to the event, the excitement grew, and people jockeyed for seats.

On the day of the event, I watched as the room filled with 250 people—poetry royalty from the Bay Area, poets and aspiring poets wanting inspiration, and those of us who just appreciate WS Merwin’s work. The room was permeated with respect and…well…reverence for a man who had spent his life pursuing his art and craft, setting new standards and conventions on the way. At age 83, he was like a beloved king holding court.

Once he got going, it was like being in a cross between an upper graduate-level philosophy lecture and a story-telling session from the Beatnik era. Some of it I couldn’t follow. But the stories—about his friendships with Ezra Pound, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Adrienne Rich and others—and his poetry I could sink into: a river of words and feelings nostalgic, sensual, and heartfelt. I could tell I was in the presence of a master.

Eric Karpeles (local author and painter and friend of William) did a valiant job as his “interviewer,” though I noticed he struggled to get a word in edgewise. William Merwin has some things to say, and he, admittedly, agreed to the U.S. poet laureate post so that he could be heard.

“I would like to say once as persuasively as possible, something which is the opposite of the principle on which our society seems to be running… We’re on a self-destructive trajectory, caused by an attitude toward the world around us and each other,” he began. He was talking about greed and lack of generosity, which he feels are the underlying cause of the environmental and other issues facing us today.

It became clear that William is a dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist. Maybe more than that, he is filled with grief about the state of the earth, and compassion for her beauty and wildness. He wants to do what he can to change the destructive course he feels we’re on.

This grief, and the balm of the natural world, runs through his poems. His remedy? And this is fresh: imagination.

“Imagination is the basis for compassion, which allows us to suffer at the thought of the homeless people in Darfur, the whales dying of starvation in the Pacific, rejoice at a child playing Mozart in China,” he said. “It is imagination that allows us compassion… If we dishonor that, exploit that, destroy that, we destroy ourselves. And if poetry disappears from our language, we will be less of a species, and have a bleaker future.”

I love this idea. It’s another reason to cultivate the imaginal in our lives—our dreams, our creativity, our feeling selves. Not only can we save the world with our compassion, we can have way more fun.

In the end, William had somewhat cynical remarks about the effect he thought his poetry and words would have on the world: “These words aren’t going to change anything, people are going to go on doing whatever they are doing,” he said.

That may be true, but I think he wouldn’t have left the sanctuary of his Hawaiian land if he didn’t think it would help. And I think he underestimates his presence and the inspiration he engenders in the crowds that are flocking to see him.

It was an honor to host him, an honor to hear him speak, and an honor to meet him.

Eric Karpeles (l) in Conversation with W.S. Merwin (r) at The New School at Commonweal February 2011. Photo: Marianne Hale