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Marin Sorescu spoke to W. S. Merwin in Morelia, Mexico, in August 1981.
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Marin Sorescu
William S. Merwin travels back and forth between New York and Hawaii in open-toed sandals. He oscillates between being a poet (his Carrier of Ladders was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1970) and a translator, while his translations do likewise—between Latin classics, poets of the Middle Ages, and French and Spanish modernists. His words seem the scar of a thought, a feeling. You can see the trace but the experience is assumed, the pain isn’t manifested. The verses are peaks barely jutting their foreheads out of the sea that’s flooded the mountain range. All in all, he could be considered a hermetic, in the spirit of Eliot’s Wasteland. Yet in his case, after a certain familiarization, the meanings begin to reveal themselves. "The bridges are not burnt, only folded," he confesses. Or, "For all the words, my silence is one." Poetry at the antipode of that practiced by Ginsberg or Ferlinghetti. Poetry of evasion, internalized, ascetic. Speech with eyelids shut tight, barely muttered, sometimes taking on the form of false pastels. Ritualistic encryption, of ancient language, of enchantment. The words, as it were, aren’t articulated in sentences, but heavy, weighed down by the secrets of gravity. The title of a poem seems significant to me for this phase: “The Indigestion of the Vampire”. It isn’t actually a scarcity of speech, but a self-imposed austerity regime. The "moving target" of his verse remains forever unreached, yet ever closer approximated by lines eager to say as much as possible.
His song plays "between two deserts”. It exists, burnt by the sun, hidden among rock crevices, which very slowly turn into sand, it is heard—here—we can perceive and feel its wavelength.
His song plays "between two deserts”. It exists, burnt by the sun, hidden among rock crevices, which very slowly turn into sand, it is heard—here—we can perceive and feel its wavelength.
W. S. Merwin
Marin Sorescu: Using a formula employed in previous interviews, I would like you to take the pulse of your own poetry and run a diagnostic on it. I find it better this way. So what is the poet? Do you remember these lines: “I know so little that anything/ You might tell me would be a revelation”?
W. S. Merwin: I don’t believe the poet is something exceptional, but he is something unique. He talks to himself, and by talking to himself he also touches on the essence of others. A good poet tries to do everything with limited words and topics. I think the purpose of poetry is to try to bring the force of innocence into the modern world.
MS: Why and how did you start writing?
WSM: My father was a pastor. When I was a boy, before I learned to read, I was attracted by the sound of hymns. At five I was composing hymns for my church. I didn’t actually come across poetry until the age of sixteen. A little earlier, at fourteen, I left my native New York to go to Princeton. After that I made a long trip around Europe, spending several years in Spain, Portugal, England, France.
MS: How do you see your first poems now?
WSM: They were written in a classic style, with influences from the Middle Ages—Portuguese, Italian. Then, with each new book, I tried to write more directly. When you write directly, you know, critics say you are obscure. Initially anyway. Then things tend to become clearer.
MS: What do you think about today's poetry?
WSM: From all over the world?
MS: Yes.
WSM: I have the feeling there’s a lot of cheating going on.
MS: Are you open to all modalities?
WSM: I hope so. But there are some that I prefer. I don't like those who limit poetry. Poetry in history, poetry in the actual circumstance of the current world. I am extremely pessimistic regarding the fact that we could do something with our verse. But I have infinite hope in what unites us, in what has allowed us to write until now. Art is and will always be practiced, even if some move away from it.
MS: Still, there is some good poetry being written today.
WSM: Yes there is enormous energy and plenty of variety in today's poetry, truly today’s, that is, modern poetry. I also notice a flaw, as if the distance between art and the vital problems of our times has increased. A weakness in which I play a part and am also guilty of. Yet I am always trying to slice more deeply into the great reality.
W. S. Merwin: I don’t believe the poet is something exceptional, but he is something unique. He talks to himself, and by talking to himself he also touches on the essence of others. A good poet tries to do everything with limited words and topics. I think the purpose of poetry is to try to bring the force of innocence into the modern world.
MS: Why and how did you start writing?
WSM: My father was a pastor. When I was a boy, before I learned to read, I was attracted by the sound of hymns. At five I was composing hymns for my church. I didn’t actually come across poetry until the age of sixteen. A little earlier, at fourteen, I left my native New York to go to Princeton. After that I made a long trip around Europe, spending several years in Spain, Portugal, England, France.
MS: How do you see your first poems now?
WSM: They were written in a classic style, with influences from the Middle Ages—Portuguese, Italian. Then, with each new book, I tried to write more directly. When you write directly, you know, critics say you are obscure. Initially anyway. Then things tend to become clearer.
MS: What do you think about today's poetry?
WSM: From all over the world?
MS: Yes.
WSM: I have the feeling there’s a lot of cheating going on.
MS: Are you open to all modalities?
WSM: I hope so. But there are some that I prefer. I don't like those who limit poetry. Poetry in history, poetry in the actual circumstance of the current world. I am extremely pessimistic regarding the fact that we could do something with our verse. But I have infinite hope in what unites us, in what has allowed us to write until now. Art is and will always be practiced, even if some move away from it.
MS: Still, there is some good poetry being written today.
WSM: Yes there is enormous energy and plenty of variety in today's poetry, truly today’s, that is, modern poetry. I also notice a flaw, as if the distance between art and the vital problems of our times has increased. A weakness in which I play a part and am also guilty of. Yet I am always trying to slice more deeply into the great reality.
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Interview available for the first time in English (translation © Daniel Carden Nemo) by kind permission of the Marin Sorescu Foundation. Original text first published in Tratat de Inspirație by Marin Sorescu (Scrisul Românesc, 1985).
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Daniel Carden Nemo is a poet, translator, and photographer. His work has appeared in Magma Poetry, RHINO, Full Stop, Off the Coast, and elsewhere.
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