Wednesday, May 21, 2014

W.S. Merwin's unpunctuated lines

I am indeed intrigued by the flow of Merwin's poems. The lack of punctuation does not hinder us from reading his poems. In fact the absence of punctuation creates a natural flow of breath that is calming. Each poem feels like a wind that has gently swept around you.
How does he do this? If we look at his poem, "The Latest Thing," the main clause in the first line that runs to the middle of the second, is followed by two subordinate clauses, which ends I imagine with a colon, because what follows is a list. This is followed by a complete sentence. And there are no punctuation marks to indicate any of this, but the absence of punctuation does not hinder our understanding of the poem.
The opening lines are intriguing: In the cities the birds are forgotten /among other things but then one could say /that the cities are made of absences / of what disappeared..."
We catch are breath a little before the end of the poem in "one white note plays on to prevent memory",
then the final line, "naturally forgetting its own song".

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