Presenter of
the National Book Awards
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Presenter of
the National Book Awards
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In his career, Merwin has migrated within the universe of poetry, moving from solidly constructed, tactile, and dramatic works to airy, abstract, unpunctuated, and contemplative poems, a journey beautifully mapped here in selections from 15 previous collections, capped by a gathering of new poems.
The poems in Migration speak from a life-long belief in the power of words to awaken our drowsy souls and see the world with compassionate interconnection. In moments of self-awakening that might be roused by ambulance sirens from St. Vincent’s Hospital, or the rustle of a weasel in the wall of a French farmhouse, these poems offer us a place in the world where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, where “the pain of learning what is lost/is transformed into light at last.”
