W. S. Merwin with Naomi Shihab Nye, 18 October 2000

This is a brief intro to this event. The full event can be found at http://podcast.lannan.org/2010/02/24/w-s-merwin-reading/ and http://podcast.lannan.org/2010/02/24/w-s-merwin-with-naomi-shihab-nye-convers...

W.S. Merwin poet, translator, and environmental activist, has become one of the most widely read poets in America, with a career spanning five decades. The son of a Presbyterian minister, for whom he began writing hymns at the age of five, Merwin went to Europe as a young man and developed a love of languages that led to work as a literary translator.

Over the years, his poetic voice has moved from the more formal and medieval to a more distinctly American voice. W.S. Merwin's recent poetry is perhaps his most personal, arising from his deeply held anti-imperialist, pacifist, and environmentalist beliefs. In 2005 he will have three new books: Migration: Selected Poems 1951-2001; a book of poems called Present Company; and the memoir Summer Doorways which chronicles his days as a student in seminary school and at Princeton, through the next years spent as a tutor for children of privilege living abroad.

William Merwin was the recipient of the 2004 Lannan Literary Lifetime Achievement Award.

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