Birds and Fish Dying By The Thousands: What Would Poet Laureate M.S. Merwin Say?

American writer William Stanley Merwin (New York City, September 30, 1927) was named in December 2010 by the Librarian of Congress as the nation's 17th Poet Laureate. The honor tops Merwin's long list of achievements, which includes over 50 volumes of poetry, prose, criticism and translation, two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award.

During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, Merwin's writing influence derived from his interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in Hawaii, he writes prolifically and is dedicated to the restoration of the islands' rainforests.

Like the alarms raised by many recently of the thousands of unexplained bird and fish deaths, raising the alarm is a big part of how Merwin envisions his role as America's poet laureate.

"I don't want to be a preacher, but I do want to say once in a very public place, in a very official place this: I think we're doing something very dangerous. We are really insisting on driving at 80 miles an hour with a stone wall not very far down the road. Somebody has to at least question it."

Merwin speaks passionately about his craft, “Poetry is about what cannot be said. Poetry is that Iraqi woman on the front page of the paper with her mouth open because her husband has just been destroyed by a bomb in front of her. And what on earth can be said? It's just one long scream coming out of her. From that, comes poetry."

For Merwin, what makes human beings unique is the capacity for imagination and compassion.

"It's what makes us concerned about the suffering of the whales or the porpoises, or the people dying of AIDS in Africa, or the plight of a single mother with three children," he says. "That is something that is largely developed in our own species, the capacity for compassion, for recognizing that one's situation is one's own situation, that there is no separation, and that suffering really is the same."

Merwin's profound connection to the natural world, and his sadness at its continued degradation by man, has been a re-occurring theme in his life and poetry since growing up. He remembers 20 years ago, he could hear the separate songs of nine nightingales in the rural French village where he once lived. Today, when he visits the village, he hears no nightingales there. There were once hoards of swallows in the village as well. Now there are none.

"No one seems to notice that. I don't know what distresses me more - the fact that they aren't there or the fact that nobody notices. What does that say about us that we think it's okay to have a world without swallows in it?"

Merwin gives us an indication of what he would say about the current wildlife deaths in an interview in the Paris Review, The connection is there—our blood is connected with the sea. It’s the recognition of that connection. It’s the sense that we are absolutely, intimately connected with every living thing. We don’t have to be sentimental and pious about it, but we can’t turn our backs on that fact and survive. When we destroy the so-called natural world around us we’re simply destroying ourselves. And I think it’s irreversible.

Sources: VOA; Paris Review; Wikipedia