Travels: Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize - Softcover

Merwin, W. S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679752773 ISBN 13: 9780679752776

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994

Synopsis

"In Travels, one of the most beautiful and moving collections of poetry of his career, W. S. Merwin displays his narrative gifts to provide us with a book of deep historical resonance and luminous poetic grace...With each new book we have been reminded why, for forty years, he has remained a pivotal figure in the literary life of this country...[he] continues to earn his place as one of our most influential and compelling contemporary poets."
--David St. John, Los Angeles Times Book Review

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Merwin is a major figure in our poetry, one of the few. His first book of verse in five years is an event. It is a very full selection with many sides: brief lyrics and long narratives, all of them marked by a moving and profound sense of the natural world and the presence in it of living creatures. Merwin's language is entirely his own, and his control of it and of the construction of his poems makes for breathtaking work of enduring quality. The narratives are a departure for this poet, dealing as they do with historical figures: "Rimbaud's Piano" is an extended meditation on the poet; others deal with naturalists such as William Bartram, Georg Eberhard Rumpf ("The Blind Seer of Ambon"), and David Douglas; and in "The Real World of Manuel Cordova" he tells a story almost as enthralling as Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

About the Author:

W. S. Merwin was born in New York City in 1927 and grew up in Union City, New Jersey, and in Scranton, Pennsylvania. From 1949 to 1951 he worked as a tutor in France, Portugal, and Majorca. He has since lived in many parts of the world, most recently on Maui in the Hawaiian Islands, where he cultivates rare palm trees. His many works of poems, prose, and translation are listed at the beginning of this volume. He has been awarded a fellowship of the Academy of American Poets (of which he is now a chancellor), the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, and the Bollingen Prize in Poetry. Most recently, he has received the Governor's Award for Literature of the state of Hawaii, the Tanning Prize for mastery in the art of poetry, a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0679752773
• ISBN 13: 9780679752776
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160