The Pupil - Hardcover
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, a volume of astonishing range and extraordinary beauty: a major literary event.
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 spiritual anguish of our time; 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 mystery:
. . . 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.
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 spiritual anguish of our time; 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 mystery:
. . . 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.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
W. S. Merwin has been awarded most of the major prizes in American poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Bollingen Prize, and the Tanning Prize for mastery in the art of poetry. He and his wife live on Maui, where he tends to his writing and to his garden of rare and endangered palm trees.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Prophecy
At the end of the year the stars go out
the air stops breathing and the Sibyl sings
first she sings of the darkness she can see
she sings on until she comes to the age
without time and the dark she cannot see
no one hears then as she goes on singing
of all the white days that were brought to us one by one
that turned to colors around us
a light coming from far out in the eye
where it begins before she can see it
burns through the words that no one has believed
The Comet Museum
So the feeling comes afterward
some of it may reach us only
long afterward when the moment
itself is beyond reckoning
beyond time beyond memory
as though it were not moving in
heaven neither burning farther
through any past nor ever to
arrive again in time to be
when it has gone the senses wake
all through the day they wait for it
here are pictures that someone took
of what escaped us at the time
only now can we remember
At the end of the year the stars go out
the air stops breathing and the Sibyl sings
first she sings of the darkness she can see
she sings on until she comes to the age
without time and the dark she cannot see
no one hears then as she goes on singing
of all the white days that were brought to us one by one
that turned to colors around us
a light coming from far out in the eye
where it begins before she can see it
burns through the words that no one has believed
The Comet Museum
So the feeling comes afterward
some of it may reach us only
long afterward when the moment
itself is beyond reckoning
beyond time beyond memory
as though it were not moving in
heaven neither burning farther
through any past nor ever to
arrive again in time to be
when it has gone the senses wake
all through the day they wait for it
here are pictures that someone took
of what escaped us at the time
only now can we remember
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherKnopf
- Publication date2001
- ISBN 10 037541276X
- ISBN 13 9780375412769
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages112
- Rating
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
US$ 59.24
Shipping:
US$ 4.30
Within U.S.A.
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
Buy New
US$ 59.24
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Pupil
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think037541276X
Buy New
US$ 59.34
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Pupil
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard037541276X
Buy New
US$ 60.25
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Pupil
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # Abebooks568361
Buy New
US$ 64.00
Convert currency
Stock Image
THE PUPIL
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.69. Seller Inventory # Q-037541276X
Buy New
US$ 95.35
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Pupil Merwin, W.S.
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.69. Seller Inventory # Q-037541276x
Buy New
US$ 95.35
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Pupil
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_037541276X
Buy New
US$ 102.30
Convert currency