The Way Back (Nature Writings)

A selection of ecological writings from the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning poet in recognition of his 100th birthday and life-long commitment to environmental stewardship.

In his famous poem “Place,” the internationally renowned poet and conservationist W.S. Merwin wrote: “on the last day of the world, I would plant a tree.” In celebration of Merwin’s singular environmental conscience and the one-hundredth anniversary of his birth, The Way Back gathers ecologically themed poems, essays, translations, and photographs from across his life, spanning both early work and the later volumes that earned him two Pulitzer Prizes among other major accolades. It includes an introduction by acclaimed environmental writer Robert MacFarlane. This landmark, centennial collection also launches a new imprint, Merwin Conservancy Books, a major effort to preserve Merwin’s literary legacy and cultivate future literature of the environmental imagination. Merwin Conservancy Books is a partnership with The Merwin Conservancy, the non-profit steward of Merwin’s home and the palm forest he planted by hand. To honor Merwin’s dedication to “putting life back into the earth” through word and deed, all royalties from these books will go back into sustaining Merwin’s rare forest and supporting new writing via the Conservancy’s artist residency program.

Introduced by acclaimed environmental writer Robert MacFarlaneAn essential volume of environmental imagination, The Way Back—and the imprint it establishes—continues Merwin’s work of enriching our literary culture and our shared natural world: book by book, seed by seed.