W. S. Merwin, Author Knopf Publishing Group $16.95 (78p) ISBN 978-0-394-57039-6
The sounds of wind and rain and the images of trees and pastures form melancholy leitmotifs in the latest volume of lyrics by this master prosodist. All slight and understated, these poems depend on nuance and the emotional color of Merwin's...
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W.S. Merwin. Copper Canyon, $24 (96p) ISBN 978-1-55659-499-1
Even with more than 20 books of poetry to his name, Merwin (The Moon Before Morning) has more to say. He makes much of the cycles of nature and the manner in which things repeat: “the rocks are singing/ under you out of the unending silence/ where...
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W.S. Merwin. Copper Canyon (Consortium, dist.), $24 (120p) ISBN 978-1-55659-453-3
This two-time Pulitzer winner returns with an expansion on his previous collection, The Shadow of Sirius, where themes of age, memory, childhood, and man’s relationship to the natural world again dominate his signature unpunctuated, plainspoken...
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W. S. Merwin, Author Alfred A. Knopf $23 (144p) ISBN 978-0-375-40486-3
Following his recent book-length verse-narrative of 19th-century Hawai'i, The Folding Cliffs (Forecasts, Sept. 14), Merwin's 18th book of poetry--not counting as many translations--pays tribute to real and poetic landscapes whose presence, the...
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W. S. Merwin, Author Counterpoint LLC $19 (96p) ISBN 978-1-887178-51-8
""Our plesance here is all vain-glory/ This false warld is bot transitory,"" wrote William Dunbar in his 16th-century poem, ""Lament for the Makaris."" The piece was not only a meditation on death but a memorial to a slew of influential writers (Chau
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W. S. Merwin, Author Knopf Publishing Group $22 (307p) ISBN 978-0-679-40526-9
Still divided by Roman walls, the Languedoc region of southern France, home to the Lascaux caves, cradles an endangered small-town and rural folk. Its people supported a highly effective Resistance movement during WW II and still maintain age-old...
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W. S. Merwin, Author Knopf Publishing Group $25 (336p) ISBN 978-0-375-40148-0
Since distinguished poet and translator Merwin (The Lice; The Vixen) moved to Maui almost two decades ago, Hawaiian flora, fauna and history have pervaded his work. His sprawling new novel-in-verse (based on historical facts) unfolds a complicated,...
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W. S. Merwin, Author Knopf Publishing Group $21 (0p) ISBN 978-0-679-44477-0
Here is a memoryscape of days spent in a remote part of France: gardens and woods recalled in rich detail, mist which has ``found/ its way without sight into the hoofprints of cows,'' changes of season whence arise a transcendent fox, a snake...
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W. S. Merwin, Author Alfred A. Knopf $20 (137p) ISBN 978-0-679-41890-0
In his first collection in five years, Merwin ( The Rain in the Trees ) focuses on humanity's destructive, arrogant relationship with nature, a subject that gives this work an apocalyptic tone. Less a visionary than a collector and preserver of...
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W. S. Merwin, Author . Knopf $23 (112p) ISBN 978-0-375-41276-9
Fresh from several much-praised book-length works, the impressively prolific Merwin (The Folding Cliffs, etc.) enters his sixth decade as a publishing poet with a decidedly mixed group of new short poems. Recent collections have portrayed the sights
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W. S. Merwin, Author Copper Canyon Press $18 (256p) ISBN 978-1-55659-139-6
Forty years of producing highly reliable renderings of French and Spanish poetry and drama have culminated in what is bound to be hailed as Merwin's grandest translational accomplishment. Following on the heels of last year's The River Sound and the
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W. S. Merwin, Author Copper Canyon Press $15 (172p) ISBN 978-1-55659-119-8
To uncork vintage Merwin is to find poetry that has lost none of its elegance. In this selection of poems taken from The Compass Flower (1977), Feathers From the Hill (1982) and Opening the Hand (1983), Merwin is often less concerned with the flow...
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W. S. Merwin, Author Copper Canyon Press $18 (320p) ISBN 978-1-55659-054-2
The prolific, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet's collections The Moving Target , The Lice , The Carrier of Ladders and Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment are themselves collected. (Mar.)
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W. S. Merwin, Author . Copper Canyon $22 (117p) ISBN 978-1-55659-284-3
In his best book in a decade—and one of the best outright—Merwin points his oracular, unpunctuated poems toward his own past, admitting, “I have only what I remember,” and offering what may be his most personal, generous and...
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W. S. Merwin, Author . Copper Canyon $22 (137p) ISBN 978-1-55659-227-0
Merwin's 24th volume of poems is his first since last year's massive new-and-collected Migration
: it may be the much-lauded poet's clearest and most unified in many years, and it is almost certainly his most moving. Following Kenneth...
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W. S. Merwin, Author . Shoemaker & Hoard $22 (216p) ISBN 978-1-59376-072-4
In 34 brief, dreamy chapters, esteemed American poet and translator Merwin meanders back to the late 1940s and early 1950s summers of his youth and inexperience. At age 16, he was blessedly released from the watchful protection of his stern...
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W. S. Merwin, Author . Copper Canyon $40 (534p) ISBN 978-1-55659-218-8
Mystical formalist, elegant romantic, Vietnam-era protester, translator, maker of sweet memoirs and uneasy dreamscapes, and ecological activist, Merwin has been so prominent for so long that it's hard to believe this rich selection represents...
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W. S. Merwin, Author . Avalon/Shoemaker & Hoard $26 (278p) ISBN 978-1-59376-030-4
This collection by the distinguished poet initially presents a challenge. The opening essay is a memoir of George Kirstein, longtime publisher of the Nation
and for even longer a friend of Merwin's. But Kirstein does not come sharply into focus
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W. S. Merwin, Author . Knopf $22 (208p) ISBN 978-0-375-41476-3
Written down at least once in 1400 but probably composed earlier (and orally), this Middle English tale is rendered line-by-line, with the original en face, by the indefatigable Merwin. This approach allows the full flavor of the poem to come...
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W. S. Merwin, Author, W. S. Merwin, Preface by Copper Canyon Press $16 (336p) ISBN 978-1-55659-091-7
Following his recent book-length verse-narrative of 19th-century Hawai'i, The Folding Cliffs (Forecasts, Sept. 14), Merwin's 18th book of poetry--not counting as many translations--pays tribute to real and poetic landscapes whose presence, the...
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