Grade:

F

The Tucson Poetry Festival has inspired a book review on one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century. W.S Merwin recently published over 80 poems in "The Pupil." However, for readers that are familiar with his other works such as "The Rain in the Trees" or "Flower in Hand," this collection is neither reminiscent of earlier glories or contemplative writing.

Since the 1950s Merwin has produced a library of poems, essays, and translations in a pocket-full of languages . He is a poet of nature ÷ speaking for the rainforests and of indigenous peoples. His poems are photographs, capturing objects in the time and light of memory. But at some time or another, memory begins to fail everyone. With Merwin, he seems to forget that he writes about the same topic every page. Reappearing the most frequent are the themes of spring, night and words. In some cases, they occur simultaneously. These subjects are vague to begin with and more boring as the book suffers on.

Within a single poem's infrastructure, he manages to be redundant as well. In the piece titled "Summer," Merwin writes: "on one foot away from the snow/ of summer the balancing on/ one foot in the flash of summer." In eight lines, he mentions various other words twice, too. This demeans the importance of each word as inherently vital. His messages then deconstruct, no longer feeling sacred or urgent. They feel wordy. Which is astonishing since this is usually the first bit of criticism that a beginning poet is sideswiped by, not one that has had over 50 years of practice and success.

In past works, Merwin has always had a way with ending lines. "There is no explaining/ the dark it is only the light/ that we keep feeling the need to account for." But throughout this book, light and dark is mentioned in almost every other ending, "dark figures slipping away toward morning," "the darkness thinking the light," "not ourselves yet the furthest light," "flash past with one cry out in the sunlight," "even out of vendor's cages when the morning light has touched them."

Since light makes the pupil dilate, it seems relevant that this idea would have some precedence over the collection, but it becomes tyrannical and oppressive. In fact, the title was the only aspect of the book that was dichotomous or engaging.

What can be understood from this surface anomaly is not only that good writers publish bad books. But when good writers do produce a sewage system gushing with crap, it is better to admit the failure. Instead of trusting the critics on the back of the book to give a good review based on the name and not the work, sometimes honest reviews come from the new generations of writers. Someone has to locate the problem, otherwise the whole city will start to stink.