W. S. Merwin and the Merwin Conservancy: Reflections on Poetry and Nature

The Merwin Conservancy is located in a rural neighborhood in Ha‘ikū, in the moku of Hamakualoa, and the ahupua‘a of Pe‘ahi. The property spans the slopes on both sides of the Pe‘ahi Stream. It is the site where renowned poet, W.S. Merwin, and his beloved wife of 40 years, Paula Dunaway, slowly and artfully manifested their vision for living in harmony with and regenerating the land.

When Merwin purchased the 19-acre plot of former agricultural land in 1977, his intention was to restore native Hawaiian ecology. The neglected landscape proved too lacking in nutrients to support the native tree species that once lived there. So, Merwin turned to palms. The Merwins’ thoughtful and steady efforts to, in William’s words, “try to restore a bit of the earth’s surface that had been abused by human ‘improvement’ ” grew to encompass one of the largest and most extensive palm collections in the world with over 2,740 individual palm trees, featuring more than 400 taxonomic species and 125 unique genera, with nearly 900 different horticultural varieties.  While living here, W.S. Merwin was named U.S. Poet Laureate (2010-11), and won the National Book Award and his second Pulitzer Prize.

The Merwins’ ensuing lifestyle embodied their love of art and nature. As they restored the land they aligned their lives with the natural environment surrounding them. The home that Merwin designed and helped build, is self-sustaining with solar energy electricity, natural shading from the tree canopy cooling the house and cisterns throughout the property collecting rainwater and filtering it for daily use.

The Man and the Poet

A Renaissance man, W. S. Merwin had a long and illustrious career as a poet, translator, gardener and environmental activist. Appointed U.S. Poet Laureate in 2010, he is one of the most widely read and respected poets in America. Born on September 30, 1927 in New York City, W.S. Merwin grew up in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, attending Princeton University on a scholarship. He wrote poetry from a young age, traveled as a young man leading to a deep love for languages and work translating literature and lived in a variety of places including Majorca, London, France, Mexico and Boston and New York. He came to Hawai‘i to study with a Zen Buddhist teacher in 1976. In 1983, he settled in Maui after marrying Paula Dunaway.

The Vision Continues with the creation of The Merwin Conservancy

W.S. Merwin passed at home in March of 2019 at age 91 (and Paula in 2017 just short of her 81^st birthday). The Merwin’s founded The Merwin Conservancy not just to preserve their home, “but also to inspire the rest of us to plant our own forests, turn our own dreams into reality, wherever we live,” noted The Merwin Conservancy upon W.S. Merwin’s passing.

The Conservancy’s mission is to “inspire innovation in the arts and sciences by advancing the ideas of W.S. Merwin – his life, work, house and palm forest – as fearless and graceful examples of the power of imagination and renewal.”

This mission is beautifully expressed in the preservation of the house and palm forest as a hallowed place and the residency program which affords a unique oasis for writers, artists and activists to reflect, study, contemplate and create. The Conservancy’s visionary programming, including the Green Room literary and environmental salon series, multimedia storytelling projects, and innovative collaborations with a variety of artistic, scientific and educational leaders and institutions, ensures the Merwin’s’ dream and legacy will continue to nourish and inspire future generations.

Sonnet Coggins, The Merwin Conservancy Executive Director, reflects on the inherent treasures of W.S. and Paula Merwin’s home, garden and unfolding legacy:

Each walk in the garden and visit to W.S. and Paula Merwin’s house offers an invitation to see this special place anew, and to understand its resonance and potential more deeply. I relish this unfolding. I delight in each discovery of a handwritten note tucked in a book, or trinket that suddenly reveals itself on a bookshelf I’ve looked at many times before. And I am grateful that my sense of each new encounter is further deepened by the thoughtfulness and creativity of those alongside whom I am preparing this place for its next chapter. Today, a wise friend and collaborator opened up a new way of thinking about this unfolding: we are witness to a critical moment in the life of this place—a tender one suspended between how things were over the decades that William and Paula shared here, and how things will be for all who will come to spend time here through our residencies and programs.

One of our latest finds bears witness not only to this moment, but to the moment when the house was first built, in the late 1970s. A few weeks ago, I was laying on the floor in the great room, listening to music while Paula’s beautiful table linens swirled in the wash downstairs. My eye traveled up to the ceiling, along the beam that runs the length of the room where meals were shared, and poems found form. Along that beam, I saw for the first time the word RIDGE, scrawled in white chalk in handwriting that was unmistakably William’s, ostensibly labeled at the time when his idea for a house itself found form, and its perch 25 feet above the Pe’ahi stream bed.

Even as we move through this transition, the legacy of endless inquiry and astonishment will remain. Forty years from now someone else will be laying on the floor, and through stillness and attention will notice the traces of some early, beautiful gesture that has yet to reveal itself. They will share not only the story of that discovery, but the stories of those who will have come to dwell in this house as artists or scientists in residence, adding their own imaginative energy to this place.

View this latest “Storied Object” video on “The Ridge Beam” of the house here.

The Merwin Conservancy received a 2021 Preservation Award for “The Sitting Room” video and the “Garden of Verses” virtual birthday celebration for W.S. Merwin held on September 30, 2020.

Refresh your spirit and quiet your mind in W.S. Merwin’s hand-built garden dojo in this incredible meditative video created by artists Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris.  This virtual experience allows viewers from anywhere to “sit” inside the small, screened-in dojo that poet W.S. Merwin built for meditation in the middle of a palm garden. Enter “The Sitting Room.”

The “Garden of Verses” program welcomed people from around the world to a virtual gathering and celebration of W.S. Merwin on the occasion of his birthday. Participants were treated to a virtual tour inside the Merwins’ home and a poetry reading of William’s work by special guests including: Carrie Fountain, Roshi Joan Halifax, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Pualani Kanaka‘ole Kanahele, Kealoha, Elizabeth Kapu‘uwailani Lindsey Crowley, Howard Norman, Naomi Shihab Nye and Cathy Song.

Watch a 4-minute preview of the “Garden of Verses” broadcast. 

View the “Garden of Verses” program guide to see which poems were read and by whom. 

Historic Hawai‘i Foundation’s Preservation Interpretive Media Award recognizes excellence in a printed publication, DVD, maps and brochures, digital application or visual presentation that interprets the history, preservation or physical characteristics of a historic property.

The 2021 Preservation Honor Awards Virtual Ceremony was held on Friday, May 21st. Click here to watch the recording.