W. S. Merwin's For The Anniversary Of My Death

Humans are addicted to the materialistic possessions that society deems as important. Dates in time such as birthday, wedding anniversary or special holidays, celebrating with others on such special occasions. W.S. Merwin celebrates the polar opposite, mourning his own death, and celebrating his last possessions. In the poem For the Anniversary of My Death by W. S. Merwin illustrates the author and his understanding of his fables of the beloved treasures left behind.

“Every year without knowing it I have passed the day”. Merwin sets the tone of the poem immediately, enticing readers to listen to his concept of death. Merwin attempts to solidify an uncontrollable reality, but due to the impossibility to predict a certain date, Merwin …show more content…
The author uses fire to describe how associates who hurt and shamed him, are waving Merwin goodbye during his passing. Piety and selfishness, two common elements of society, hard fast to the desire of being successful and socially accepted, hailing material goods and desires. This describes the people Merwin coincide with, following his previous statement with “And the silence will set out” creating an absence of the senses following death. Merwin, however, does not describe the reality it applies within. Merwin shifts his focus presenting “Like the beam of a lightless star” this contradicts his message from the start of this stanza talking about silence, developing from greeting enemies to unsupressable darkness. Stars and celestial bodies are eternal and radiate outwards into the universe. The line also features an oxymoron, “… the beam of a lightless star”. Although seemingly impossible, stars after death can produce a beam of radiation that has no basis in visible light. This dying star or black hole reflects the theme of this poem, fining the eternal place of silence while mourning his loss of worldly possessions. Like death, In …show more content…
Merwin similar to the previous stanza, applies a statement, beginning the stanza with “Then I will no longer” differentiating from his previous position of not knowing the outcome of his death, rather focusing on the possible truth, “Then I will no longer … Surprised at the earth” when reading this poem, this line in the second stanza did not seem to fit along with the rest of the poem. The second stanza offers a Merwins understanding of his future. Once explicated it held a much deeper interest that presumed about Merwin and how his thought process of being surrounded by the earth, in whereby earth stands for the dirt. The only possible reason for being surprised at being surrounded by dirt is to signify the burial of a deceased member or family. “Find myself in life as in a strange garment” the use of parallelism by the author to state ‘life’ as an entity or being, and further use of “as in a strange garment” to signify a divide and scrutiny, isolating “strange garment” Deciding to do this was intentional, the body is a form or container that we have grown accustomed to. Garments seem strange if the style and look are equal to the standards of the individual. “And the shamelessness of men.... And not knowing to what.” Men is a greater meaning of society and their inability to truly realize what they follow and believe, and the constant failure to change their ways. Society falls into the