Poet laureate has roots in area

It only seems fitting that a man living in Haiku, Hawaii, would be named the nation’s next poet laureate.

But long before he went to live on a Pacific island, William Stanley Merwin was more familiar with the Susquehanna River. The 82-year-old poet, who goes by the name W.S. Merwin, grew up in Scranton and was a 1944 graduate of Wyoming Seminary in Kingston. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

He has lived in Hawaii the past three decades and this fall he will succeed Kay Ryan, who has held the post since 2008.

Merwin, who studied at Princeton University, has written more than 50 books of poetry, prose, plays and translation during a 60-year career.

The announcement places another feather into an already full cap of his high school alma mater.

“We are very pleased for Mr. Merwin. This is certainly an honor well deserved. We have been following his career for so long,” said Gail Smallwood, a spokeswoman for Wyoming Seminary.

His writing skills and prose have long been known at the private secondary school.

Addressing his fellow classmates at their 1944 graduation, he offered a four-line poem that incorporated the perils of World War II that was raging in the world:

While there was punctuation in that poem, about 20 years later Merwin stopped using periods, commas, question marks and semi-colons.

Jackie Kepler, 85, a resident of Wesley Village in Jenkins Township, was listening to those words on June 5, 1944. Then known as Jacqueline Anderson, she was among the class of 100 and recalled her interactions with the boy she knew simply as Bill.

“I can’t say I was close friends with Bill, but I knew him and we talked on occasion,” Kepler said. She said boys and girls were kept apart in those days, with the exception of Thursday night mixers that were strictly observed by Seminary staff.

She does recall certain things very vividly about Bill, including him boasting that he could write hymns, a skill he learned from his Presbyterian minister father at an early age. She also said that the two have little in common because “I was into sports and he was not.”

They have not spoken or seen each other since graduation, but she said she has followed his writings and told friends she knew him when he was a young man.

In 2002, Wyoming Seminary honored Merwin with the Joseph C. Donchess Distinguished Service Award. The award recognizes alumni and members of the Seminary community who have made noteworthy contributions, according to Smallwood.

Smallwood said Merwin obviously met the requirement then and even more so now with the latest career achievement.

“He has done so much for poetry, and we certainly look forward to following him as poet laureate,” Smallwood said. “This is a great honor for him and for us as well.”

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