Present Company (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Merwin's 24th volume of poems is his first since last year's massive new-and-collected Migration: it may be the much-lauded poet's clearest and most unified in many years, and it is almost certainly his most moving. Following Kenneth Koch's New Addresses, its 101 poems address a person, place, object or abstraction ("To the Shadow," "To the Stone Paddock by the Far Barn"). Almost all seek, and many achieve, a deliberate pathos over the passage of time: "I will wait and you can follow alone," concludes Merwin (who won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize) in "To Lili's Walk," "and between us the night has come and gone." Often stark, at times nearly imageless, the poems recall particular moments in Merwin's own life, comment on the act of writing or introduce gentle humor. ("To the Consolations of Philosophy" begins "Thank you but/ not just at the moment.") Some of the best, such as "To My Grandfathers," remember dead family members and friends. Short-lined free verse pieces "To the Soul" and "To Forgetting" may become new anthology signatures or provoke new attention to this elder statesman of American verse. The book's greatest weakness may be its length; so many lyric poems with similar structures and near-identical tones make it harder for the best few to stand out. (Sept.)
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From Booklist

Each of the 100-plus poems in Merwin's meditative, playful, and lithely beautiful new collection, which closely follows the remarkable retrospective volume Migrations (2005), begins with the word To and directly addresses some aspect of nature or the self, a feeling or an idea, a person, place, or moment. Merwin keeps his language simple but his perceptions complex. Classical in their lines of inquiry and restraint yet vital in their attunement to the here and now, these personal odes and musings on daily existence and the cycles of life are, by turns, bemused and exalted. As Merwin moves from contemplating his reflection in the mirror to musing over memory, grief, duty, absence, purity, and the splendor of the earth, the subtle, wavelike motion generated by each poem infuses the collection with buoyancy and light.

Merwin is as refined and entrancing a prose stylist as he is a poet. Earlier works chronicle his experiences in France and Hawaii. In Summer Doorways, he circles further back in time to tell amusing and piquant stories of his years at Princeton during World War II, and of summers in the country that stoked his sense of wonder and mystery. Chance acquaintances led to Merwin's becoming a tutor to privileged boys in beautiful settings, including Genoa and Portugal. His splendidly detailed and sensuous descriptions (what a memory he has), especially of postwar Europe, are redolent in mood and precious historically. And he takes great pleasure in turning intriguing, exquisitely crafted portraits and anecdotes into lustrous recollections that capture lost time and trace the making of a poet. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press (September 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556592272
• ISBN-13: 978-1556592270
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #907,679 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On Merwin: Words of Praise Fail, October 11, 2005

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

How does one write critically about the abundant beauty of the poetry of W.S. Merwin? Long acclaimed as one of our most poignant and important poets, his newest collection is an endless stream of homages to fleeting thoughts, ideas, and other delicacies encounter by the informed eye and heart. Merwin keeps his language simple but continues to prod our senses with challenging concepts. In these one hundred odd poems he wanders through our perceptions and imaginations and strikes chords familiar and foreign, all with the flowing beauty of his carefully molded words.

These poems seem to be odes, not so much to people as to natural matters and objects and notions. In 'To a Falling Leaf in Winter': 'At sundown when a day's words/ have gathered at the feet of the trees/ lining up in silence/ to enter the long corridors/ of the roots into which they/ pass one by one thinking/ that they remember the place/ as they fell themselves climbing/ away from their only sound/ while they are being forgotten/ by their bright circumstances/ they rise through all the rings/ listening again/ afterward as they/ listened once and they come/ to where the leaves used to live/ during their lives but have gone now/ and they too take the next step/ beyond the reach of meaning.'

There are no adequate descriptives for Merwin's gifts. They are simply there for the savouring of those with quiet hearts to read and hear. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, October 05

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To Merwin: With Awe & Gratitude, August 14, 2006

By	Emily C. Fragos (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Recovering from painful surgery, I read and reread W.S. Merwin's Present Company and was rewarded with solace, total honesty, beauty, lucidity, gracefulness, pathos. This is a book of lyric masterpieces by a master poet at the peak of his visionary, humane powers. There are too many poems to quote here. Among my favorites: To My Legs, To My Mother, To My Grandfathers, To Aunt Margie, To the Old, To the Long Table, To Forgetting, To the Gods, To the Sorrow String." Read them all and be reminded of the vast, magical power of truly great poetry. Find yourself changed -- and weeping.