The Poet Who Was Green
Review by Dr. Jerry Flack
The Poem Forest is a picture book biography of W. S. Merwin (1927-2019), an exceptionally gifted man who adeptly combined his life passions for poetry, literary translations, and the wilderness. He was an environmental activist of the highest order. Author Carrie Fountain is an award-winning poet whose lyrical narration reveals the remarkable life story of a man few gifted readers will have previously known. Artist Chris Turnham’s digital artwork is dazzling. Fountain, Turnham, and their subject, W. S. Merwin, could not be more GREEN in the finest contemporary connotation of the word.
Early in his life, William Stanley Merwin fell passionately in love with wild spaces, but he was not surrounded by them. Born in New York City, he grew up in large cities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania where “civilization” had eliminated the organic shapes of nature and replaced their beauty with unnatural straight lines. Green wild places were replaced with asphalt pavements and ugly concrete constructions. He lived for summer when his family vacationed in the wilderness. The young William Stanley loved the open blue skies, the songs of the forest birds, and perhaps most importantly, winding natural pathways. These forests had not yet been overtaken by straight and unnatural lines.
Growing up, William Stanley discovered his passion for words, most particularly poetry. His verses were similar to the wilderness he loved; no one could straighten out his voice. As he matured, Merwin was intuitively convinced that Hawaii remained one of the few wild places where he could plant seeds that would flourish. He was disappointed to discover that the land he desired to cultivate on Maui’s north shore had been scarred to the point where even local people gave him no encouragement. The land he wanted to bless with a wild, thriving, and opulent green palm tree forest was thought to be a wasteland. But, Merwin was not to be deterred. He began to reclaim his dream location by planting a single palm tree each day during the island’s rainy season. A palm tree forest began to emerge. Merwin, and later his wife, Paula, and their friends planted palm trees evert day. During his lifetime, they planted between 30,000 and 40,000 palm trees in an ever-expanding green wilderness. He discovered that palm trees in other places around the world were greatly endangered. He imported these precious species and they thrived in a magnificent forest where the only straight lines were the dimensions of his small cabin home anchored on tall stilts to facilitate rainwater catchment. Just as he planted at least one palm tree daily, Merwin simultaneously wrote at least a new poem every day.
Why poetry and environmentalism? One of Merwin’s most memorable quotations answers this question.
I think there’s a kind of desperate hope built into poetry now that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there’s still time. I think that’s a social role, don’t you? We keep expressing our anger and our love, and we hope, hopelessly perhaps, that it will have some effect.
“Remembering W. S. Merwin” www.PoetryFoundation.org
Merwin additionally became famous for his literary translations. His writing career began at the early age of four years when he penned new lyrics for the hymns he hoped his father, a Presbyterian minister, would use in church services. That was never meant to be, but at such a tender age he was recognized for his gifts with words. Merwin was a verbal prodigy, yet he grew up during the economically hard times of the 1930s and 1940s. His family could not afford to send him to college, but he won a full scholarship to Princeton University. There, the phenomenally gifted young man studied literature and languages. In addition to being a highly honored poet and environmentalist, Merwin gained fame and awards for his verse translations. He translated the ancient words of Dante as well as the works of contemporaries such as Pablo Neruda. Merwin translated poems from French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Latin, Yiddish, Japanese, and Sanskrit.
Fountain, Carrie. The Poem Forest: Poet W. S. Merwin and the Palm Tree Forest He Grew from Scratch. Illus. by Chris Turnham. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2022.
Merwin received virtually every known honor for poetry and verse translations. He won two Pulitzer Prizes, a National Book Award, and in 2010 the Library of Congress named him the Poet Laureate of the United States. A fellow Hawaiian, President Barack Obama, invited him to the White House where he was further honored.
Late in his life, the great poet and environmentalist and his wife, Paula, made certain that their lush forest (with no straight lines) could never be destroyed or paved over. They gave their lush forest away. They established the Merwin Conservancy so that their palm tree forest could never be wounded again. Volunteers continue to expand the Conservancy by planting ever more palm trees. Even Merwin’s modest forest cabin is preserved.
Carrie Fountain provides a lengthy Author’s Note that expands her biography of William Stanley Merwin’s life, service, and contributions to nature and literature. She also incorporates “Palm,” one of Merwin’s most evocative poems. Artist Chris Turnham’s handsome illustrations visually chronicle Merwin’s life from early childhood to his most senior years. Every imaginable hue of green suffuse his glorious images. Fittingly, organic shapes are plentiful. Merwin loved dogs. A majestic rust-colored Chow accompanies the poet-environmentalist on his daily walks through the winding, twisting, curving pathways of the ever-growing palm tree forest. The same Chow appears in framed photographs in a double-page spread that is Turnham’s replication of Merwin’s home writing office.
With colorful words and splendid images, The Poem Forest is a stellar example of the value of picture book biographies. Initially targeted for younger gifted readers, this impressive juvenile biography is able to be utilized with the education of gifted readers of all ages. It is a singularly vital book to be greatly celebrated. The Poem Forest can become the inspiration for unlimited creative extensions.
Home and School Activities
Read Aloud.
Dr. Wilson Chan, Director of The Gifted Lab in Singapore, writes in his reports, “Children are never too old to have someone read aloud to them. Sharing aloud good books, particularly award-winning books which have proven themselves worthy of being read, is a wonderful way to establish emotional bonds in a family.” One can easily add teachers and mentors to “the bonds of family.” Any exploration of ecological studies, for example, can be initiated with a shared oral reading of The Poem Forest.
A Tribute to Forest.
One of the finest columns to be found in the monthly Gifted Development Center Newsletter is “Environmental Tips from Forest.” Forest Olson, a 10 year old at Telluride (CO) Intermediate School, offers invaluable suggestions of how both children and adults can join forces to protect and preserve the environment. W. S. Merwin used verse and personal action to try to save the planet. One suspects that W. S. Merwin would have loved reading Forest’s priceless words. Encourage students to write a poem describing the great value of Forest’s environmental suggestions that Merwin might have composed. Share the current example of Forest’s “Environmental Tips from Forest” or past columns.
Internet Research.
Once students have read or heard a reading of The Poem Forest, encourage them to greatly expand their knowledge of W. S. Merwin’s poetry, translations, environmental activism, and myriad accomplishments. Encourage students to search local libraries for print copies of his 50+ books. Online searches yield wide-ranging and diverse positive links or results. Internet searches tools such as Google provide further biographical data, letters, bibliographies of Merwin’s verse and translations, magazine articles (e.g., The New Yorker), and a collection of 40 Merwin quotations. YouTube interviews and readings are illuminating. A great many of the live performances feature his green or environmentally-oriented poetry. Such readings present yet another splendid opportunity for further read aloud experiences. Internet search results are so vast that gifted researchers can even extend their inquiries to “W. S. Merwin’s Chow dogs.”
The W. S. Merwin Classroom Museum.
Based upon a reading of The Poem Forest, encourage students at home or in school to survey the plethora of Merwin’s print and digital sources that reveal the wide-ranging scope of the poet, translator, and environmentalist. Students can become Merwin experts. They can then use their own creativity to make contributions to a W. S. Merwin Museum to be scheduled for relevant festivities such as Arbor Day, Earth Day, and even National Poetry Month (April). Working individually, in pairs, or in groups, talented youths can transform research results into their own verse or artistic creations such as a palm tree forest mobile, a sketchbook or journal of palm tree species, and original posters of dust jackets for books of Merwin’s poetry. Gifted readers can present dramatic oral readings or recitations of their new hero’s outstanding verse such as the poem “Rain at Night.” Working together, two talented students can present an imagined interview with Merwin during his tenure as America’s Poet Laureate.
