W. S. Merwin

In a career spanning five decades, W. S. Merwin, poet, translator, and environmental activist, has become one of the most widely read poets in America. Over the years his poetic voice has moved from the more formal and medieval to a more distinctly American timbre, with his most recently poetry being the most personal. His poems reflect his profoundly anti-imperialist, pacifist, and environmentalist views. Merwin skillfully uses language to convey an intimate feeling for landscape and the natural world.

Among Merwin’s many books are The Drunk in the Furnace (1960), The Moving Target (1963), The Lice (1967), The Carrier of Ladders (1970), Opening the Hand (1983), The Vixen (1996), The Lost Upland (1992), and The Folding Cliffs (1998). His critically-acclaimed translations include Dante’s Purgatorio and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. His most recent books are Present Company, a memoir entitled Summer Doorways, and his selected poems collection, Migration: Selected Poems 1951-2001.

Merwin’s accomplishments have been recognized through numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize (1971), the Tanning Prize (1994), the Bollingen Prize (1979), the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1998), the 2004 Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2005 National Book Award for Poetry, and the 2006 Ambassador Book Award for Poetry.