The Poem Forest: Poet W.S. Merwin and the Palm Tree Forest He Grew from Scratch

“For William Stanley, writing poetry was like visiting a wild place—a surprising place always just exactly itself, language growing wherever it pleased.” This simplified biographical work describes the late U.S. poet laureate W.S. Merwin (1927–2019) growing up amid American city blocks “where the wild parts had been straightened out” and creating a home on a Maui plot deemed a “wasteland.” Planting at least one palm tree “every day during the rainy season” to help heal the earth, Merwin, later collaborating with his wife, plants thousands of palms, including endangered species, creating a forest that eventually becomes the Merwin Conservancy. Earth-toned digital illustrations by Turnham use simple applications of color to depict the poet’s life and the changing landscape, eventually visited by guests of varied ages and skin tones. Fountain’s prose poetry gently narrates Merwin’s steady, determined action—both in poetics and in planting. Merwin’s poem “Palm” concludes. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)