Lament for the Makers: A Memorial Anthology [Hardcover]

W. S. Merwin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1996

"A small but rich anthology of poems by twentieth-century practitioners who influenced Merwin". Publishers Weekly

This beautifully packaged anthology begins with a memorial poem W S. Merwin honoring twenty-three great modern poets, all of whom died during his lifetime. It continues with representative works, photographs, and brief biographies of each. among them Dylan Thomas, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Randall Jarrell, John Berryman, W. H. Auden, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, James Wright, and James Merrill.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Our plesance here is all vain-glory/ This false warld is bot transitory," wrote William Dunbar in his 16th-century poem, "Lament for the Makaris." The piece was not only a meditation on death but a memorial to a slew of influential writers (Chaucer, and the like) who had passed on. Now, borrowing title, theme and rhyme scheme, Merwin, at age 69, does likewise: "The notes in some anthology/ listed persons born after me." So he turns to embrace a star-studded corpus. Twenty-three of his mentors, from Frost to Plath to Roethke to Merrill, are fondly, if briefly, remembered in this 208-line dirge ("then word of the death of Stevens/ brought a new knowledge of silence"). And, in a stroke of clever marketing, a single poem from each of the departed, complete with photo and mini-obit, rounds out what is essentially a coffee-table book of a dead poets' society, a small but rich anthology of poems by 20th-century practitioners who influenced Merwin.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The poem that provides the title for this mini-anthology of modern poetry is Merwin's memorial to 23 contemporary poets, all now dead, whom he counts as influences. "Lament for the Makers" is a 52-stanza memento mori addressing the age-old issue of the mortality of humans and the alleged immortality of art through a kind of poetic roll call of such luminaries as Dylan Thomas, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, and Marianne Moore, to name a few. The idea is to expand Merwin's poem into a commemorative book by including a representative poem from each poet along with a photograph and brief biography. The result is hard to classify?more than a poetic tribute, less than an anthology. It is perhaps best described as an elegant gift for the coffee table of a modern poetry aficionado. Recommended for informed lay readers.?Thomas F. Merrill, Univ. of Delaware, Newark
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 89 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; First Edition edition (November 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1887178511
• ISBN-13: 978-1887178518
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 7.3 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #504,658 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

W.S. Merwin is the 17th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry of the United States. He is the author of over fifty books of poetry, prose, and translations. He has earned every major literary prize, most recently the National Book Award for 'Migration: New and Selected Poems' and the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for 'The Shadow of Sirius.' He lives in Hawaii where he raises endangered palm trees.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Sampling of Some of Our Best Poets, February 17, 2004

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Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lament for the Makers: A Memorial Anthology (Hardcover)

W.S. Merwin curated single poems from the works of poets who had lived and died during his lifetime and published them under the title LAMENT FOR THE MAKERS: A Memorial Anthology. Himself a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1971, Merwin begins this tasty anthology with an extended poem in which he memorializes (or rather crystallizes) each of the twenty-three poets he has selected. Though not his best poem, it is an apt introduction to works by TS Eliot, WH Auden, James Merrill, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Plath, Robert Graves, Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams, etc. Reading poems selected by a poet is a lesson in itself. This small anthology will encourage readers, new to some of the poets here, to pursue more complete anthologies (the isolated works are not among the poets' best). A nice bedside book for ending the day in beauty.