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March 25, 2019
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Jan Morris

Jan Morris has written some 40 books of history, travel, biography, memoir, and fiction.

Keep Smiling

An agnostic sermon

by Jan Morris | Monday, June 09, 2014

England, My England

The poet whose bucolic lyrics defined a generation

by Jan Morris | Monday, June 05, 2017

A Very Embodiment of Simple Goodness

by Jan Morris | Monday, December 19, 2016

A Very Embodiment of Simple Goodness

by Jan Morris | Monday, August 01, 2016

Fantastic Four

The enduring influence of a quartet of Oxford dons

by Jan Morris | Monday, June 08, 2015

Carnival of the Animals

The Italian artist Carpaccio cast a careful, loving eye on his many nonhuman subjects

by Jan Morris | Monday, September 08, 2014

Newsletter

THIS WEEK’S ARCHIVE PICK

Remembering W. S. Merwin

by John Kaag

W. S. Merwin, one of the most celebrated and prolific poets of his generation, died last Friday at the age of 91. A former U.S. poet laureate and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Merwin was also known for his work as a conservationist. After moving to Hawaii in the 1970s, he began the decades-long project of restoring different plant species to the former pineapple plantation where he lived. Merwin was notoriously difficult to contact, but in the fall of last year, John Kaag managed to interview him over the phone. Merwin, he reports, repeated the same lines throughout their conversation: “The time of wisdom cannot be measured, and, for me, wisdom is the garden. There is no time in the garden.” In an essay for the Scholar, Kaag explores this relationship between gardening and the passage of time, and how it is reflected in Merwin’s life and poetry.