Poem-a-Day, April 16: made of ash

Ash

The church in the forest
was built of wood

the faithful carved their names by the doors
same names as ours

soldiers burned it down

the next church where the first had stood
was built of wood

with charcoal floors
names were written in black by the doors
same names as ours

soldiers burned it down

we have a church where the others stood
it's made of ash
no roof no doors

nothing on earth
says it's ours


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Hello Friends,

Today's poem comes from the works of W.S. Merwin, who has been eschewing punctuation quite successfully in his poetry for over 50 years — except to dot his own initials.

"Ash" first appeared in his 1973 collection Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment, and is also included in his Selected Poems (1988). You can listen to Merwin read "Ash" to you himself during a great KQED radio interview from a few years ago. And you remember that website I told you about, the Academy of American Poets? They have some pretty neat videos of poets talking about poetry, including W.S. Merwin here.

In 1971, Merwin famously dedicated his Pulitzer Prize money to opposing the Vietnam War. He moved to Hawai'i in 1976 to study Zen Buddhism and currently lives on Maui, on a former pinapple plantation that he has labored to restore to its original rainforest state. He continues to write poetry, plays, memoirs, short and long prose, and translations and won the Pultizer Prize in Poetry again just last year.

Best,
Ellen


"Ash" by W.S. Merwin was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 7, 2007.
Poems by W.S. Merwin were also featured for Poem-a-Day April 17, 2008 and Poem-a-Day April 9, 2009.

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