Monday
March 25, 2019
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Stanley Plumly

Stanley Plumly is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and the author, most recently, of The Immortal Evening: A Legendary Dinner with Keats, Wordsworth, and Lamb.

Meeting the Test of Time

Why some wordsmiths stay and others fade away

by Stanley Plumly | Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Everything In Its Right Place

by Stanley Plumly | Monday, June 06, 2016

The Art of the Sentence

by Stanley Plumly | Monday, November 10, 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.