1. “For the Anniversary of My Death” W.S. Merwin
Student

2. Presentation Background of W.S. Merwin Explication Literary Terms
Personal Analysis
Critical Analysis

3. Background of W.S. Merwin
Born 1927, poem written in 1967
Son of a Presbyterian minister
First interested in prose, later turned to poetry
Known for both original and translated poetry
According to poetryfoundation.org:
“[Merwin] eventually became known for an impersonal, open style that eschewed punctuation.” 

4. Explication Merwin’s Text Rephrasing
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day When the last fires will wave to me And the silence will set out Tireless traveler Like the beam of a lightless star
Every year I live, there’s a day that will become my death eventually
Death -> Last fires (Funeral pyres)
Death -> Silence (Sleep)
Death -> Traveler (“Undiscovered Country”)
Death -> Lightless star

5. Explication Merwin’s Text Rephrasing Life is awkward and unnatural
Then I will no longer Find myself in life as in a strange garment Surprised at the earth And the love of one women And the shamelessness of men As today writing after three days of rain Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease And bowing not knowing to what
Life is awkward and unnatural
Death is where we return
Just as rain is natural, so is death
I bow down to death, although I don’t know him yet

6. Literary Terms Free Verse Enjambment Alliteration Imagery Anaphora
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one women
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what
Free Verse
Enjambment
Absolutely no punctuation
Alliteration
T’s
S’s
Imagery
Fire | Traveller | Star | Garment
Three days of rain | Wren sing
Anaphora
Ties beginning to the end
Metaphor
Simile

7. Personal Analysis
Merwin’s Eternal Rainfall: Death in “For the Anniversary of My Death”
How he establishes death as a theme
Why we must accept it
Death is constantly around us
“Every year I pass…”
Life is more unnatural than death
“Find myself in life…”
Death is the natural order
We must bow to it, although we don’t recognize it

8. Critical Analysis
“It begins, mordantly enough, even morbidly, with life conceived of as having attained purpose and a measure of identity only when it reaches the end.” (Ramsey 589).
Supports the idea that life is only truly ‘natural’ in death
“[The Lice’s] first premise is the intuition of apocalypse.” (571).
“The poet’s long standing concern with inklings of his own mortality now flows inexorably into the apprehension, little short of the certainty, that we are all living out the end of something.” (571).

9. Works Cited Google Images
Merwin, W.S. “For the Anniversary of My Death.” The Lice. New York: Atheneum, Print.
Ramsey, Jarold. “The Continuities of W.S. Merwin: ‘What Has Escaped Us We Bring with Us’.” The Massachusetts Review 14.3 (1973): Web.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New Haven: Yale University Press, Print.