Description
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 was 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 latest 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 late collections from Bloodaxe are 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.
Reviews
The Moon Before Morning is a book of drive, finesse and astonishing beauty...There are few great poets alive at any one time, and W.S. Merwin is one of them. Read him while he is still contemporary. -- Fiona Sampson * Guardian *
W.S. Merwin's legacy is unquestionably secure: his best and most fierce poems are moody, visionary compositions that dive into the unconscious and the seeds of existence with an inwardness and scrutiny unique in American poetry. -- David Biespiel * Poetry *
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 empathic collection. Somehow, he manages to dissolve the boundaries between one time and another, seeming to look forward to the past or remember what has yet to happen... Gorgeous poems about enduring love melt time as well, looking toward a moment when we will be no older than we ever were. * Publishers Weekly *
Book Information
ISBN 9781780371016
Author W. S. Merwin
Format Paperback
Page Count 128
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd