A Mask for Janus

Yale Series of Younger Poets

by W.S. Merwin

A collection centered in myth, A Mask for Janus is the 49th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets
 
While Merwin’s poetry as a whole is grounded in the poetic forms of many eras and societies, this first collection is inspired by classical models. Writing in American Poetry Review, Vernon Young traces the poems to “Biblical tales, Classical myth, love songs from the Age of Chivalry, Renaissance retellings; they comprise carols, roundels, odes, ballads, sestinas, and they contrive golden equivalents of emblematic models: the masque, the Zodiac, the Dance of Death.”

Genres: Poetry

67 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

William Stanley Merwin was an American poet, credited with over fifty books of poetry, translation and prose.

William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests.

Merwin received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971 and 2009; the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005, and the Tanning Prize—one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets—as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the Library of Congress named him the 17th United States Poet Laureate.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the first days, one when the world turned
Dark and the rain came, we remembered fires
In lost houses; we stared and lurched half-blind
Against new darkness, neither night’s nor ours.

Rounded up for some moving stanzas, ones which won’t quite let go. The ecological themes of the later work are all evident, though the vision here is of a musical bend, a summoning from around the bard’s fire. Entire pages did appear opaque, which is about right for me. It was a worthy voyage.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the Bier of the Worldling


My friends, what can I say,
Having forgotten thew feeling and the time
When it seemed that a dull bod,
That even a dead man could dream
Those small belligerent birds, perhaps one gull,
Turning over the foul
Pond by the colliery,
These waters flickered by a regardless wind,
And the clouds, not of this country,
Sailing, as I had imagined;
Then these faces, even as I am, stilled,
Conforming to the world.
That which I kept, on body
And a few clothes, are brought to following
Processes as of poverty,
Suffering but not knowing,
Lying unimproved by the long season
And the falling rain.

* * *

Epitaph


Death is not information.
Stone that I am,
He came into my quiet
And I shall be still for him.

* * *

The Bones of Palinurus Pray to the North Star


Console us. The wind chooses among us.
Our whiteness is a night wake disordered.
Lone candor, be constant over
Us desolate who gleam no direction.

* * *

Song with the Eyed Closed


I am the shape in sleep
While the seasonal beasts
With petulant rough step
Forsake my random coasts.

I am the face recedes
Though the pool be constant
Whose double kingdom feeds
The sole vein's discontent.

I have seen desire, such
As a violent hand,
Murder my sleep - as much
Is suffered of the wind.

* * *

Carol


Lady, the dew of years
Makes sodden the world
And yet there is no morning.
Lady, we cannot think you
Indifferent or far,
And we lean and call after
You who in the night,
As a morning, among
This our heaviness came
And our eyes called you maiden.
We are in the darkness,
Our eyes turned to the door,
Waiting. Because you passed
Through the room where we are,
Your form not cumbered
with our weight and gesture;
Waiting, because you went
Uncontained by our shadows,
As a light, quietly;
Leaning, as though you might
Come again where our eyes
Are lost that follow after
You who as a light
Through the room where we are
With grace carried a flower.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to penetrate, but when you do, there's sOmething to dwell upon. Needs many a re-reading. Many allusions to obscure histories I need to learn about. Still using punctuation, occasional rhyme and meter.

[Becca Schimmel]

I did not connect with the work and I wonder if it is something that requires multiple readings. I’m not rating it because I don’t think it’s fair to after only one reading.

[David Anthony Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admire Merwin's poetry, so I was interested to see his development from an early age. The poetry here definitely shows great promise in the young man. However, it is stilted and derivative---but don't we all write that way in the beginning?

[Bryce Emley · Rating 3 out of 5]

really hard to follow. a little bit dry for me, but when i could pay attention long enough i liked what i read.