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Merwin and the National Book Award |
Friday, November 18, 2005 |
Finally, W.S. Merwin won a National Book Award for Migration: New and Selected Poems. He's won several other prizes, including a Pulitzer in 1970, but never a NBA, even though he's been nominated many times in the past. Now all that's left to win is a Nobel Prize in Literature. I've said it once, and I'll say it again, he and Robert Bly should win the Nobel Prize, not just for their poetry alone, but also for their wonderful translations over the years. If Merwin dies before winning the Nobel Prize, it will rank up there with the tragedy of Borges and Nabokov never winning it either.
Merwin is one of my all-time favorite poets. Here are a few poems I like (and I hope you will too).
"For The Anniversary Of My Death"
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day When the last fires will wave to me And the silence will set out Tireless traveller Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer Find myself in life as in a strange garment Surprised at the earth And the love of one woman And the shamelessness of men As today writing after three days of rain Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease And bowing not knowing to what
"Separation"
Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.
"Witness"
I want to tell what the forests were like
I will have to speak in a forgotten language
"Yesterday"
My friend says I was not a good son you understand I say yes I understand
he says I did not go to see my parents very often you know and I say yes I know
even when I was living in the same city he says maybe I would go there once a month or maybe even less I say oh yes
he says the last time I went to see my father I say the last time I saw my father
he says the last time I saw my father he was asking me about my life how I was making out and he went into the next room to get something to give me
oh I say feeling again the cold of my father's hand the last time
he says and my father turned in the doorway and saw me look at my wristwatch and he said you know I would like you to stay and talk with me
oh yes I say
but if you are busy he said I don't want you to feel that you have to just because I'm here
I say nothing
he says my father said maybe you have important work you are doing or maybe you should be seeing somebody I don't want to keep you
I look out the window my friend is older than I am he says and I told my father it was so and I got up and left him then you know
though there was nowhere I had to go and nothing I had to do
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posted by pimplomat @ 11:54 AM |
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1 Comments: |
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"yesterday" strikes a bit too close to home, and in that way it is wonderful.
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"yesterday" strikes a bit too close to home, and in that way it is wonderful.