“The Poem Forest” in Lāhainā

When our friend Mary Anna Grimes learned that she and former Merwin Conservancy poet-in-residence Carrie Fountain shared a hometown, Mary Anna reached out to the local bookstore in their beloved Mesilla, New Mexico, to order Carrie’s latest book. Soon, thirty copies of The Poem Forest: Poet W.S. Merwin and the Palm Tree Forest He Grew from Scratch were on their way to Mary Anna’s home in Kula, on Maui. She wasn’t quite sure at the time into whose hands these books would make their way, but she followed her love of both places – the palm garden here on Maui and her childhood home in Mesilla – and relished the idea of gifting the story to others.  After months went by with no sign of the books, Mary Anna ordered a second set, and soon all sixty copies arrived on her doorstep! Mary Anna called me, and together we wondered how and with whom we might share Carrie’s beautiful story of a place “where the wounded earth healed.”

After the Maui fires, we knew just what to do. Mary Anna had taught sixth grade in Lāhainā for decades. She reached out to Princess Nahieʻenaʻena Elementary, which has served as the temporary site of King Kamehameha III Elementary School since Kam III’s oceanside buildings were lost to the flames in August. Last week, Mary Anna and I drove into Lāhainā with a trunk full of books, and met up with the librarians of both schools. Mary Anna read the story to 58 keiki, many of whom had lost all of their belongings, and gave each of them a Poem Forest of their own.  Mahalo nui to Mary Anna, to Carrie Fountain, to the teachers and librarians at Princess Nahieʻenaʻena and King Kamehameha III Elementary Schools for a very special morning of poems and palms, and place.