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W. S. Merwin Quotes
American
-
Poet
September 30, 1927
Now all my teachers are dead except silence.
W. S. Merwin
Silence
Dead
Teachers
Now
Except
We are asleep with compasses in our hands.
W. S. Merwin
Hands
Our
Asleep
Poetry is like making a joke. If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke, you've lost the whole thing.
W. S. Merwin
You
Poetry
End
Lost
One Word
Get
Joke
Like
Making
Thing
Whole
Word
Wrong
I am too conscious of being an American to accept public congratulation with good grace or to welcome it except as an occasion for expressing openly a shame which many Americans feel, day after day, helplessly and in silence.
W. S. Merwin
Good
Silence
Grace
Day
Conscious
Expressing
Occasion
Openly
Shame
Welcome
Accept
After
Am
American
Being
Except
Feel
I Am
Many
Public
Too
Which
The Indians seemed to be living in a place and in a way that was of immense importance to me. So I associate learning to read - English, oddly enough - with wanting to know about Indians. I'm still growing into it. I've never outgrown that.
W. S. Merwin
Me
Learning
Never
Way
Associate
Immense
Importance
Indians
Oddly
About
English
Enough
Growing
Know
Living
Place
Read
Seemed
Still
Wanting
The kind of writing that matters most to me is something you don't learn about. It's constantly coming out of what I don't know rather than what I do know.
W. S. Merwin
Me
You
Know
Writing
About
Coming
Constantly
Kind
Learn
Matters
Most
Out
Rather
Something
Than
In a sense, much that is learned is bound to be bad habits. You're always beginning again.
W. S. Merwin
You
Beginning
Bad
Always
Bad Habits
Bound
Habits
Again
Learned
Much
Sense
You have to be rather relentless about pushing other things out of the way. This activity of writing, which has no promises attached to it, comes to be given a kind of arbitrary but persistent importance.
W. S. Merwin
You
Way
Promises
Things
Activity
Arbitrary
Attached
Importance
Persistent
Pushing
Relentless
About
Given
Kind
Other
Out
Rather
Which
Writing
As a child, I used to have a secret dread - and a recurring nightmare - of the whole world becoming city, being covered with cement and buildings and streets. No more country. No more woods.
W. S. Merwin
World
Secret
City
Woods
Buildings
Cement
Covered
Dread
Nightmare
Recurring
Streets
Becoming
Being
Child
Country
More
Used
Whole
I think memory is essential to what we are. If we - we wouldn't be able to talk to each other without memory. And what we think of as the present really is the past. It is made out of the past.
W. S. Merwin
Past
Memory
Think
Present
Essential
Able
Each
I Think
Made
Other
Out
Really
Talk
Without
The past is always - one moment it's what happened three minutes ago, and one minute it's what happened 30 years ago. And they flow into each other in ways that we can't predict and that we keep discovering in dreams, which keep bringing up feelings and moments, some of which we never actually saw.
W. S. Merwin
Dreams
Past
Moment
Never
Bringing
Discovering
Flow
Minute
One Minute
Predict
Actually
Always
Each
Feelings
Happened
Keep
Minutes
Moments
Other
Saw
Some
Three
Up
Ways
Which
Years
Years Ago
I think this is one of the benefits of getting older: that one has that perspective on things farther away. One is so caught up in middle years in the idea of accomplishing something when, in fact, the full accomplishment is always with one.
W. S. Merwin
Perspective
Think
Getting Older
Away
Accomplishing
Accomplishment
Benefits
Caught
Farther
Always
Fact
Full
Getting
I Think
Idea
In Fact
Middle
Older
Something
Things
Up
Years
That's a great gift to be given, that feeling of no fear.
W. S. Merwin
Great
Fear
Gift
Feeling
Great Gift
No Fear
Given
The idea of writing, to me, was, from the beginning, was writing something which was a little different from the ordinary exchange of speech. It was something that had a certain formality, something in which the words were of interest in themselves.
W. S. Merwin
Me
Words
Beginning
Writing
Exchange
Formality
Ordinary
Speech
Certain
Different
Had
Idea
Interest
Little
Something
Themselves
Were
Which
He said you should write about 75 lines every day. You know, Pound was a great one for laying down the law about how you did anything.
W. S. Merwin
You
Great
Day
Law
Great One
Laying
Pound
About
Anything
Did
Down
Every
Every Day
He
How
Know
Lines
Said
Should
Write
I can't imagine ever writing anything of any kind on a machine. I never tried to write either poetry or prose on a typewriter. I like to do it on useless paper, scrap paper, because it's of no importance.
W. S. Merwin
Poetry
Never
Useless
Like
Importance
Machine
Prose
Scrap
Typewriter
Any
Anything
Because
Either
Ever
Imagine
Kind
Paper
Tried
Write
Writing
We are the shadow of Sirius. There is the other side of - as we talk to each other, we see the light, and we see these faces, but we know that behind that, there's the other side, which we never know. And that - it's the dark, the unknown side that guides us, and that is part of our lives all the time. It's the mystery.
W. S. Merwin
Shadow
Light
Time
Never
Faces
Guides
Mystery
Unknown
Behind
Dark
Each
Know
Lives
Other
Our
Our Lives
Part
See
Side
Talk
Us
Which
The time of wisdom cannot be measured, and for me, wisdom is the garden. There is no time in the garden.
W. S. Merwin
Wisdom
Me
Time
Garden
Measured
No Time
Cannot
I go five steps in the garden, and I immediately lose track of time... it is a kind of joy in being alive in being in the world. I always found that in the garden. That is what it means to me.
W. S. Merwin
Me
Time
World
Joy
Garden
Immediately
Steps
Alive
Always
Being
Five
Found
Go
Kind
Lose
Means
Track
The Arab world is erupting, which is extraordinary, and to see it happen is like watching rings spreading on a pool - it goes out; it varies so much. The spontaneity is wonderful, but very often, if it's not well organized, it breaks up, and it peters out.
W. S. Merwin
World
Like
See
Pool
Arab
Arab World
Breaks
Extraordinary
Organized
Rings
Spontaneity
Spreading
Varies
Goes
Happen
Much
Often
Out
Up
Very
Watching
Well
Which
Wonderful
Jeffersonian democracy, faulty as it is, and only the fragment of it that we have, is a thing of such preciousness, a thing of such value.
W. S. Merwin
Democracy
Value
Only
Thing
Faulty
Fragment
Democracy's got endless problems and faults and dangers, but it's certain the alternatives are not better.
W. S. Merwin
Democracy
Better
Problems
Faults
Alternatives
Dangers
Endless
Certain
Got
What turned me into an environmentalist, on my eleventh birthday, was seeing the first strip mine.
W. S. Merwin
Birthday
Me
First
Seeing
Environmentalist
Strip
Mine
Turned
As soon as I could write with a little pencil, I was writing these little hymns and illustrating them, and I thought they should be sung in church, but they never were.
W. S. Merwin
Never
Church
Pencil
Writing
Hymns
Illustrating
Sung
Could
Little
Should
Soon
Them
Thought
Were
Write
What a great poem teaches you - and it's not intellectual at all - is the resonance in the language that's heard there. This goes back to the very origins of poetry and to the very origins of language.
W. S. Merwin
You
Great
Poetry
Language
Intellectual
Origins
Poem
Resonance
Teaches
Back
Goes
Heard
Very
I think poetry is as old as language, and both come out of the same thing - an effort to try to express something that is inexpressible.
W. S. Merwin
Poetry
Effort
Think
Old
Inexpressible
Same Thing
Both
Come
Express
I Think
Language
Out
Same
Something
Thing
Try
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