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W. S. Merwin (1927–2019) was born in New York City. His book Migration: Selected Poems 1951–2001 won the National Book Award for poetry in 2005, and he has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. In 2010 Merwin was named Poet Laureate of the United States, and in 2013 he was the first recipient of the International Zbigniew Herbert Prize. Merwin lived and worked in Hawaii, where he maintained a garden of rare and endangered palm trees.


Merwin lived and worked in Hawaii, where he and his wife maintained a garden of rare and endangered palm trees. See a gallery of photos of the Merwins’ home.

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Pe‘ahi Poems

by W. S. Merwin
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Homecoming

Once only when the summer
was nearly over and my own
hair had been white as the day’s clouds
for more years than I was counting
I looked over the garden at evening

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  • Each phrase sings death into life—he's always done that. All...

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