Summary Of For A Coming Extinction Merwin

Conservation of wildlife is an issue that is relevant to today in people’s everyday life. The importance of this topic, was not introduced recently. Although a poem published in 1967, still have relevance today shows the importance of modern contemporary poets, whose voice can be heard to this day. W.S. Merwin’s “For a Coming Extinction” emphasizes the importance of saving animals and the environment that is still relevant to today’s issues. In this short poem, concepts of everyday wrong-doing that mankind have justified through desensitizing, Merwin points out the inexplicable justices. In this poem, Merwin is writing to a whale that is about to be slaughtered by humans. He wanted to ask for forgiveness on behalf of mankind, but contradicts …show more content…
Merwin says, “The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless/ And foreordaining as stars/ Our sacrifices” (Merwin 27-29). Thomas Byers analyzes this piece by saying, “Instead of celebrating the self's expansion, Merwin laments the death we cause in our ‘progress.’ He blames this death on our assumption that the world exists for us, and on our consequent possession and use of nature, by which we are preparing” (Byers). There’s only one Earth with plenty of animals to sustain a suitable life, but for mankind, the overuse of limited resources takes a toll on all species. Today, the extinction rate is increasingly rising, and the measures taken to slow down that rate isn’t enough to save all of the species affected. “The rapid loss of species we are seeing today is estimated by experts to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate” (How Many Species Are We Losing). Mankind has become too greedy, and the progression we need, for example, fossil fuels, it is overused and abused. At this rate, Merwin is warning the audience of the effects of carelessness to the animals on this Earth, which is still a major issue