Poetry Response #2

"To Myself"

Even when I forget you
I go on looking for you
I believe I would know you
I keep remembering you
sometimes long ago but then
other times I am sure you
were here a moment before
and the air is still alive
around where you were and I
think then I can recognize
you who are always the same
who pretend to be time but
you are not time and who speak
in the words but you are not
what they say you who are not
lost when I do not find you

—W.S. Merwin


“To Myself” by W.S. Merwin is about the loss of someone the author loved and remembering things about that time. Even when he is not thinking of who is lost, he continues to pursue and look for her wherever he goes. The poem itself is a narrative that uses repetition and is one continual thought to explain his feelings.

The way in which this poem is written causes the reader to have to reread it over and over again. W.S. Merwin is remembering a loved one and we ‘walk’ through his thought process by having no punctuations. I think it relates to the title of the poem, “To Myself”, in that, usually when one writes a note to themselves it rambles on and is unorganized such as with the repetition of the two words “I” and “you”. Some parts of the poem are hard to understand but I don’t necessarily think comprehension was the goal of the piece; meaning he wrote it for himself and not anyone else.

I found the ending of the poem to be particularly difficult to understand. Lines 10 through 16 are about what I think is a women and her always be the same but she is not who they she says. It is unclear who they is and why the tone changed from remembrance to more of a challenging tone. The author doesn’t think others understood who the loved one was and only he really identified with her.

It is actually a sad poem because you can almost feel the presence or try to imagine who the person he is talking about is. For example, when he says, “…The air is still alive around where you were and I think I can recognize you…” shows that he has not moved on from the loss of this person and he still thinks of her even when he does not intend on doing so. “To Myself” by W.S Merwin shows the emotion behind the loss the author and how she was remembered.