In this edition of The Howard County Poetry and Literature Society's "The Writing Life," W.S. Merwin talks of the environment, his life in Hawaii and the poetry that gently probes the natural world around us. The late poet Roland Flint acts as host, and recalls in this program that W.S. Merwin's first book was chosen for the Yale Younger Poets series by W.H. Auden in 1952. Though honors (a Pulitzer, Bollingen, etc.) have come his way more frequently than riches, shortly before this taping in 1994 Merwin became the first Master American poet to receive a $100,000 Tanning Prize.
To have the freedom to write, Merwin has always lived frugally. Earlier in France, more recently in Hawaii, he alternates between literary pursuits and the work of restoring ruined agricultural land. He gardens less as an owner than the temporary caretaker of a precious resource. Whether planting trees or tending endangered species, concern for the environment permeates all Merwin's writings -- prose, poetry or translation. Merwin sits casually in his blue jeans, and talks of the environment and villanelles. He reads five poems from The Rain in the Trees ("Late Spring," "West Wall" and "The Solstice") and two from his latest volume, Travels, ("Witness" and "Place").
For more information about "The Writing Life" and HoCoPoLitSo (the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society), visit www.hocopolitso.org.