Selected Poems - Softcover

W.S. Merwin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 185224769X ISBN 13: 9781852247690

Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 2007

Synopsis

W.S. Merwin was arguably the most influential American poet of the last half-century - an artist who has transfigured and reinvigorated the vision of poetry for our time. While he has long been viewed in the States as an essential voice in modern American literature, his poetry has been unavailable in Britain for over 35 years. This selection covers over five decades of his poetry, from "The Dancing Bears" (1954) to "Present Company" (2005). Most of the book is drawn from his major American retrospective, "Migration", winner of the 2005 National Book Award for Poetry. Merwin's poetry has moved beyond the traditional verse of his early years to revolutionary open forms that engage a vast array of influences and possibilities. As Adrienne Rich wrote of his work: "I would be shamelessly jealous of this poetry, if I didn't take so much from it into my own life." His recent poetry is perhaps his most personal, arising from his deeply held beliefs. Merwin is not only profoundly anti-imperialist, pacifist and environmentalist, but also possessed by an intimate feeling for landscape and language and the ways in which land and language interflow. His latest poems are densely imagistic, dream-like, and full of praise for the natural world.

About this title

About the Author

W.S. Merwin (1927-2019) was Poet Laureate of the United States in 2010-11. He received most of the principal prizes in American poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize (twice), the Bollingen Prize and the Tanning Prize and a Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award. Bloodaxe published his Selected Poems in 2007, prior to which his poetry had been unavailable in Britain for over 35 years. As well as being an internationally renowned poet, W.S. Merwin is the author of many classic translations, including editions of Neruda, Dante, The Song of Roland, The Poem of the Cid, and (from Bloodaxe) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. His titles from Bloodaxe are Selected Poems(2007); The Shadow of Sirius (2009), which won him his second Pulitzer Prize; The Moon Before Morning (2014); and Garden Time, (2016). All three of his final collections from Bloodaxe were Poetry Book Society Recommendations. Born in New York City, he taught at several universities, and lived on the Pacific island of Maui, tending to his writing and to his garden of rare and endangered palm trees.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 185224769X
• ISBN 13: 9781852247690
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176