A number of the findings in my most recent book have been prominently mentioned without citing the source. The inverse correlation between my Amazon book sales and the organic traffic to my Facebook book page continues to manifest. (Or should that be computer-algorithm-fest?) Sales have returned to the normal trickle. Once again I will have to pore over the data in search of another work-around. Not that the correlation is anything other than a coincidence, of course.
At least I'm doing some little bit of something I love, I tell myself. But then something else occurs like William Stanley Merwin dying. I race to end the day early and to write something worth having said about his work, his life. Failing today, I envision how I will steal the time from tomorrow's endless hamster-run. Failing tomorrow, I envision the day after.
Little by little I am reminded. Merwin accomplished all he accomplished—that is to say, a remarkable amount—without the Internet. Not to say "in spite of not having the Internet" but because he did not have the Internet.
That is to say that, he did not have to overcome inverse algorithms. He did not have to do his own marketing and/or pay out of pocket for advertising that he was never likely to receive back in royalties. He did not have to write poetry and essays in a world in which major publishers no longer publish poetry or essays. He succeeded without having to attend all the right parties. Without establishing a popular open-mic reading at a local bar looking to bring a few lost souls inside on a slow business night. Without the least effort to be accessible.
Mostly, he made a conscious effort to limit his participation in a world that was becoming ever less habitable. Just being exceptional at what he did was able to get him close enough to success that he could take a meaningful amount of time to practice and advance his craft and make that the basis of his effort.
He did need to kick off his career by winning the most prestigious first book prize of his time. The competition circuit had not yet become the ubiquitous source of publishing capital it has been for decades now. Moreover, competitions hadn't become so pervasive that most prizes had been watered down to be so many Poetry-Scout merit badges. A Yale Younger meant a more or less prestigious career for most who won.
Such was the dream back then and W. S. Merwin managed to live it. Not only live it but make it into his own unique version of the dream. When one speaks of Yale Younger Poets (and one rarely does anymore) as a group with shared characteristics one is not speaking of Merwin. The Yale Younger turned out to be the first stage of his rocket. From the point at which that stage fell away, he struggled with his personal muse and his fellow poets. Houston called and the expected didn't happen—the standard phrases did not come back by way of reply.
W. S. Merwin set his own course. Not to be like others. Not in order to oppose others. Always aware of those who had gone before, of his landmarks. Always using them to calculate his position along a new course. In this way he was the last great poet of the Western tradition. In this way he was the hopeful trailblazer for a new idea of how tradition could be transitioned into a new dynamic.
How he managed to do this and still managed to have a supremely successful career is too long a story to go into here and mostly a mystery to me. The other young top-gun poets and critics of his day freely disparaged his work. Still he won the highest honors his profession had to offer. They captured the most prestigious teaching positions in the field. He eschewed teaching, traveled presenting his Adonis-looks to a world that couldn't help but look on with admiration. Including the many women who traveled some part of the way with him.
For all of this, he valued a rich private life far above anything that public life could offer. As poetry became ever more an academic field, on one hand, and a populist pursuit on the other, Merwin had the blessing of property he had purchased here and there, from out of his fees and prize monies, with the thought of crafting it, too, into a poem. He sought refuge there while the planet he fought all his life to protect stood in ever greater peril. The dangers increasing exponentially. The words which he had fought all his life to empower being reduced to the stuff of memes.
For all of his capabilities, W. S. Merwin had not managed to save the world. Even he had fallen far short of the means to do so and could only take respite in the hope that somehow, against all odds, it would save itself. That children, troubled only by childhood troubles, would continue to play in neighborhoods where birds chirped and in nearby woods. That they would read books from public libraries, and, without even much thinking about it, slowly turn those words into a college degree and a job that can support another generation of children.
What he had done was probably the most that any of us can do. Over the years he had built himself another world filled with uncommon riches for mind and body and open to the few guests that could find their way. Perhaps I will meet you there. Or perhaps the algorithms will keep me occupied elsewhere.
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