W. S. Merwin

William Stanley Merwin ( born September 30, 1927 in New York) is an American writer and translator, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice.

Life

Born the son of a Presbyterian minister in New York Merwin studied writing and Romance Studies at Princeton University. After graduating, he traveled through France, England and finally Spain, where he taught in Mallorca in 1950 son of Robert Graves. Graves ' penchant for themes of ancient mythology was transferred to Merwin.

From 1951 he worked in London as a translator, until he returned to America, where he devoted himself to poetry. His first book of poetry brought him the 1952 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. The following books of poetry in the stylistic tradition of Wallace Stevens, among others, and Robert Graves followed.

In the 1960s, Merwin began to experiment with poetic forms what he theoretically substantiated in essays such as On Open Form (1969). There were strengthened themes from his own life to, such as 1960 in The Drunk in the Furnace. In 1971 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the report in the previous year band The Carrier of Ladders. In 1970 he published his autobiography, The Miner 's Pale Children. His later years spent Merwin in Hawaii, where paying particular attention in his poems of nature. However, he is known for his poetry, which, as also deal with Robert Bly, Adrienne Rich, Allen Ginsberg, or Yusef Komunyakaa, with the Vietnam War. In 1977 he was also awarded the Bollingen Prize for poetry.

After the verse novel, published in 1998 Folding Cliffs: A Narrative, published in 2006 under the title Summer Doorways more memoirs. He lives on Maui in Hawaii and received in 2009 for The Shadow of Sirius the second time the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Since the autumn of 2010 he is the 17th Poet Laureate of the United States. It is the successor of Kay Ryan.

Other books of poetry

  • A Mask for Janus (1952 )
  • Green with Beasts (1956 )
  • The Moving Target ( 1963)
  • The Lice (1967 )
  • The Compass Flower ( 1977)
  • Finding the Islands ( 1982)
  • The Rain in the Trees (1988 )
  • Travels ( 1993)
  • The Vixen ( 1996)
  • Flower & Hand (1997)
  • The River Sound (1999)
  • The Pupil (2001)
  • Migration: New & Selected Poems (2005)
Integrated Authority File
809942
de