it will never end in wisdom if it doesn't begin in delight

Read for pleasure. Read junk. Read every kind of book. But read for pleasure. The reason the Puritans wanted to stamp out poetry was because it gave pleasure. It’s about things you love, things that you care about. Sir Philip Sidney, in the generation before Shakespeare, said, “Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” And it will never end in wisdom if it doesn’t begin in delight and continue in delight. When you read a poem and you think, “God, that is so beautiful, I don’t want to forget that,” and you go on saying it to yourself because you love it, that’s pleasure. That is real pleasure.

- W.S. Merwin, in interview with Ed Rampell at The Progressive. You can read more of the interview here.

obviously you're not concerned with language as decoration

Interviewer: Do you see a connection between poetry and prayer?

W.S. Merwin: I guess the simple answer is yes, if only because I think of poetry as an attempt to use language as completely as possible. And if you want to do that, obviously you’re not concerned with language as decoration, or language as amusement, although you certainly want language to be pleasurable. Pleasure is part of the completeness. I think of poetry as having to do with the completeness of life, and the completeness of relation with one’s experience, completing one’s experience, articulating it, making sense of it.

I: How about the influence of Zen in your work?

WSM: When you talk about prayer in Judeo-Christian terms, prayer is usually construed as a kind of dualistic act. You’re praying to somebody else for something. Prayer in the Western sense is usually construed as making a connection. I don’t think that connection has to be made; it’s already there. Poetry probably has to do with the recognizing of that connection, rather than trying to create something that isn’t there.

- W.S. Merwin, recently crowned U.S. Poet Laureate, from a 1987 interview in The Paris Review. You can read an excerpt here, and the full interview here.

if people respond to a poem of mine at all

Jeffrey Brown: Another thing that comes through here is a kind of simplicity of language, of form.

W.S. Merwin: I'm so glad you say that, because I've been trying since I was 30, at least, to write more simply and more directly. I like the idea that sometimes one hears poetry as though one were overhearing it, you know?

And sometimes my favorite passages of poetry seem like that. They're something that -- they're just around in the air somewhere, you know, and they seem so simple, the way Mozart seemed so simple, you know? He certainly is not, but neither is Shakespeare, but, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" I mean, it takes your breath away. You stop and think, "My god, how beautiful that line is."

Brown: You mean, you're trying to pare down to a kind of clarity?

Merwin: I would like it -- if people respond to a poem of mine at all, I would like them to feel finally that they might have written it, you know?

Brown: Really, that they might have written it?

Merwin: They might have written it, yes.


- from an interview as part of NewsHour's Poetry Series. Read the whole transcript or listen to the interview here.