The Lice

After taking a class on Merwin, I think The Lice is my favorite all time Merwin collection. I love how he experiments to find find his true voice. There are so many arcs, no just in the context of the writing, but in Merwin's quest for his true narrative tone. A must read. And the forward by Zapruder is excellent.

This book is not much like other volumes that Merwin had already published. That says something about the time in which it was written. The poems are built from bare and austere images of things to signify a sense of loss most likely due to an early mid-life crisis magnified by the social crisis of the Vietnam War. These pieces feel incomplete and yet click with us if we have passed through similar periods.

Really strange that there were no reviews, so I figured I would add my 2 cents. This is a book that cemented Merwin's style and initiated themes that continued to evolve in subsequent works--topically elusive, void of punctuation. short lines and short poems, deeply rooted in nature and consciousness, building upon a participation mystique; this is one of the most significant and influential early deep-imagistic works. "Now all my teachers are dead except silence". The Lice first came out in the midst of Viet Nam and ecological crises, and re-issue at present regrettably is all too apt."When the war is over--we will be proud of course the air will be--Good for breathing at last..." I imagine these poems as prayers from the time of Neolithic hunters perhaps 30,000 years ago trying to understand an unknown and essentially unknowable animistic universe. One approach would be the Lascaux caves. These poems also could be their responses, shared around a guttering evening fire .perhaps in that same cave.