“Evening has brought its / Mouse and let it out on the floor …” W. S. Merwin, who died last March at 91, was influenced by Protestant hymns and the work of Tolstoy and Conrad. His career in poetry began when he won the Yale Younger Poets Prize in 1952 (W. H. Auden was the judge). In 1976 Merwin moved to Hawaii, studied Zen Buddhism, and restored his land to a native palm forest. That’s what poetry is—something growing. Friends and colleagues gather to read from Merwin’s wondrous work. —L.J.