The Merwin Conservancy is a small and thriving arts and ecology organization on the island of Maui. It conserves both an extraordinary place—a lush and rare, 19-acre palm forest that two-time Pulitzer prize winning poet W.S. Merwin beckoned into being from land designated as agricultural wasteland —and it conserves the sense of wonder that brought forth both Merwin’s poetry, and his garden.
Our Mission:
We 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.
To fulfill this mission, the Conservancy maintains the house and palm forest as a place of stillness and reflection for retreat, study, and contemplation through a residency program for creative visionaries and thought leaders from Hawaii and across the world. We engage both local and global communities through our Green Room literary and environmental salon series, through dynamic multimedia storytelling projects, and through innovative collaborations with various artistic, scientific and educational leaders and institutions.
We Believe:
- in wonder as the root system of creative action and expression
- in the power of place to remind us of the oneness of humanity and nature
- in our responsibility to awaken, again and again, to the complicated beauty of our world
- in our capacity to find and live the fullest expressions of ourselves
- in our ability to fully live our concerns for the world, with fearlessness and grace
