W.S. Merwin is a highly-anthologized poet who also has a knack for writing remarkable translations. He is a bit of a loner, and doesn’t work as a university academic. Now he is the U.S. poet laureate.
Merwin is one of those well-revered poets who is seemingly loathe to give readings or step into the public spotlight. It’s almost as if his only concern is doing his own thing. But then he receives awards and prestigious positions and something comes down and smacks him on the head and he discovers that, “Oops, I’m accidentally a prominent American poet.”
Merwin lives on an island and comes to the mainland but twice a year. Okay, the island is Hawaii and the mainland the lower 48 states. But still, talk about keeping a low profile. Merwin had one of those “life-changing” experiences as a young writer. He met a Modernist poet (Ezra Pound) who gave him one bit of advice: “Translate. You haven’t got anything to write at 18, and you have to write every day. The only way to do it is to learn languages and translate.”
Since then Merlin has translated numerous books from numerous languages, including Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian. Not only does he have an ear for romance languages, he also has a mesmerizing ability to capture the aural music in poetry.
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Tagged as:
Kay Ryan,
Lori Huskey,
Poet Laureate,
W.S. Merwin
by Michael Bagwell
Sleep falls apart in front of me
like a slab of concrete
broken and carried off
by hundreds of gray winged moths.
The moon trembles in this geometric
deconstruction, wrapped in the silver
of your voice.
Following fractured sound alone,
I trace the fragile architecture
of your absence
and try to remember wholeness
______________________
Michael Bagwell is a student at West Chester University where he is studying English and Philosophy with minors in Creative Writing, Film and French. He edits and is featured in the two university creative writing journals, “Literati” and “Daedalus.” His work has also been published in “Collective Fallout” and “Short, Fast and Deadly.”
Tagged as:
Michael Bagwell,
Poetry
Another Birthday Gone By
Our editor gave us a birthday prompt yesterday. We’ll let you be the judge of this: an act of kindness for a flaky yours truly or a call for attention? If the former, we appreciate the reminder. On the other hand, as the man is a year older now, we hope he is mature enough to exclude the latter. Alas, we’ll treat him to some literary links. We start with a review of Martin Millar and the world of Brixton punks. Punk influenced Kurt Cobain, and Kurt Cobain influenced Karan Mahajan. More music, more punk. Here’s a mixtape essay from Shaking Like A Mountain. And here too are three new reading choices. To close out, we have a review of British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s Love Poems, which is how we’ll segue into wishing Kevin, and the rest of you, a year of happy aging. — Andrew Geer
Tagged as:
Literature in the Media,
Thursday's Flurry of Words
