Blogfinger

Pegasus. A Greek symbol of poetry

A Walker Evans photograph of Ocean Grove in the Pathway.

By Paul Goldfinger Editor.  (re-posted from 2010)

We recently posted a poem  called “One Summer,” and it is a lovely reminiscence about someone who recalls visiting Ocean Grove as a child.   We had been informed that the poem was written by a famous writer, W.S. Merwin, but we had trouble confirming that, so we said that it was written by Anonymous.

However, since then, we have had a real expert help us: Mr.Peter Armenti of the Digital Reference Section at the Library of Congress. Mr Armenti determined that the poem “One Summer” was indeed published in the November/December edition of the American Poetry Review (vol. 39, no. 6)  and that the poem was in fact written by W.S. Merwin.

We have no information as yet of Mr. Merwin’s relationship with Ocean Grove, but we do know that he is currently the United States Poet Laureate as appointed by the Library of Congress. He was born in 1927 and lived in Union City, New Jersey, before his family moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Currently he lives on Maui near the rim of an extinct volcano.

The American Poetry Review has been publishing continuously since 1972. They are based in Philadelphia  and their subscribers are from over 50 countries around the world.

From the American Poetry Review:

“W.S.  Merwin  has published over twenty books of poetry. His recent collections include Present Company (Copper Canyon, 2007); Migration: New & Selected Poems(2005) which won the 2005 National Book Award; The Pupil(2002); and The River Sound (1999). Among his many honors are two Pulitzer Prizes, awarded in 1971 and 2009.”

W.S. Merwin 1927-2019.

ONE SUMMER  by W.S. Merwin

It is hard now to believe that we really

went back that time years ago to the small town

a mile square along the beach and a little more

than a century old where I had been taken

when I was a child and nothing seemed to have changed

not the porches along the quiet streets

nor the faces on the rockers nor the sea smell

from the boardwalk at the end of the block

nor the smells from the cafeteria in a house

like the others along the same sidewalk

nor the hush of the pebbled streets without

cars nor the names of the same few hotels

nor the immense clapboard auditorium

to which my mother had taken me

to a performance of Aida

and you and I walked those streets in a late

youth of our own and along the boardwalk

toward music we heard from the old carousel

Editor’s Note:  2010:

We at Blogfinger are excited about this revelation  (Thanks to Ms. Rhoda Newman of Santa Monica, California —-formerly of Ocean Grove— and to Mr Peter Armenti of the Library of  Congress). The adult in the poem says that he was a child  in the Grove when the town was “a little more than a century old”, so the math doesn’t work out. Perhaps the child visiting the Grove is fictional, but the poet clearly is familiar with OG. Mr. Merwin in now 83 years old.  We plan to try to contact him for more information, but that process may take a while.

The posting of this poem on Blogfinger reminds us of our recent publication of Walker Evans’ photograph of Ocean Pathway.  You may recall that a Grover who works at the Museum of Modern Art helped us establish a link between OG and a famous artist.

BILLY EILISH :