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  • What We Do
    • Portland Arts & Lectures
    • Youth Programs
    • Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships
    • Delve Readers Seminar
    • Portland Book Festival
    • Writing Classes
    • The Archive Project
    • Event Calendar
  • Who We Are
    • Our Staff
    • Contact Us
    • Our History
    • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
    • Supporters
    • What Writers Say
    • Open Positions
    • Brian Booth Writers’ Fund
  • Blog
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  • Tickets & Class Registration
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W.S. Merwin

W.S. Merwin, acclaimed, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, answers questions in Portland’s Newmark Theatre, followed by a reading from his 2005 National Book Award-winning collection, Migration.

November 8th, 2008

Season 5

Portland, Oregon

Topic:

  • Craft & Writing
  • Environmentalism
  • Nature

Tone:

  • Inspirational
  • Reading (of own work)

Genre:

  • Poetry

In this episode, we honor two-time United States Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winner W.S. Merwin. In November of 2008, Merwin joined Literary Arts downtown in the Newmark Theatre for an intimate Q&A session, followed by a reading from his 2005 National Book Award-winning collection, Migration. The collection features a combination of new poems and selected favorites from the course of his lengthy and prolific career. In a New York Times review of the book, Don Chiasson wrote that Merwin’s poetry “implies something above or below ordinary speech: the hum of deep interiority, a chorus of ancestral voices, the music of the spheres.” It was Merwin’s ability to blend this kind of secular spirituality with the political that made him much beloved among literary lovers and critics alike. His keen ear for language allowed him to epitomize and transcend the issues he tackled, among them the Vietnam War and environmentalism, with heart-wrenching elegance. Merwin’s passion for the environment in particular colored his later work. When asked about the role of the poet in society, Merwin replied, “I think there’s a kind of desperate hope built into poetry now that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there’s still time. I think that’s a social role, don’t you?”

After over a half-century of award-winning literary and civic contributions, W.S. Merwin passed away on March 15, 2019, at the age of 91.

Born September 30, 1927, in New York City, William Stanley Merwin was the son of a Presbyterian minister, for whom he began writing hymns at the age of five. He was raised in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and attended Princeton University on a scholarship. As a young man, Merwin went to Europe and developed a love of languages that led to work as a literary translator. Over the years, his poetic voice has moved from the more formal to a more distinctly American voice. Merwin was perhaps the most highly decorated poet in American history, with two Pulitzer Prizes, and National Book Award, and two terms as United States Poet Laureate, among many other honors. As the Atlantic Monthly says, “The intentions of Merwin’s poetry are as broad as the biosphere yet as intimate as a whisper. He conveys in the sweet simplicity of grounded language a sense of the self where it belongs, floating between heaven, earth, and the underground.”

He lived in Majorca, London, France and Mexico and several places in the United States, including Boston and New York. In 1976, Merwin moved to Hawaii to study with Robert Aitken, a Zen Buddhist teacher. He married Paula Dunaway, in 1983, and settled on Maui. For nearly 30 years, they lived in a home that he designed and helped build, surrounded by acres of land once devastated and depleted from years of erosion, logging, and toxic agricultural practices. Merwin painstakingly restored the land into one of the most comprehensive palm forests in the world. He passed away on March 15 in his home at the age of 91. [Bio courtesy of merwinconservancy.org]

https://media.blubrry.com/the_archive_project/p/media.blubrry.com/litarchiveproject/p/content.blubrry.com/litarchiveproject/Archive_Projec_517_W_S_Merwin_PODCAST.mp3

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The Archive Project

A retrospective of some of the most engaging talks from the world’s best writers from over 30 years of Literary Arts in Portland. The Archive Project features the most sought-after talks from our Portland Arts & Lectures series and special events. Each week, we publish new lectures available for streaming on this website for free. With over 250 original lectures by the most creative and articulate minds of our generation, these discussions offer special moments between world-famous authors and our local literary community. Select episodes of The Archive Project air every Wednesday at 10:00 p.m. on OPB radio. Click here to visit the show’s homepage on opb.org. Episodes released on our website and on OPB Radio are available for download on iTunes in the podcast section under "Literary Arts." Click here to visit The Archive Project on iTunes.

Also from this season:

Upcoming Events

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January Writer of Color Sunday Morning Workshop

January Writer of Color Sunday Morning Workshop

January 5, 2020

Sunday, January 5, 2020 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Meets at Literary…

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Building a Writing Habit

Building a Writing Habit

January 5, 2020

January 5 – February 9, 2020 Sundays, 10 a.m. to noon (6…

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Collisions: Short Story Workshop

Collisions: Short Story Workshop

January 14, 2020

January 14–February 18, 2020 Tuesdays, 7:00–9:00 p.m. (six sessions) Instructor: Josha Nathan…

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Everybody Reads 2020: Tommy Orange

Everybody Reads 2020: Tommy Orange

March 5, 2020

Literary Arts is proud to host an evening with award-winning author Tommy…

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2020 Verselandia!

2020 Verselandia!

April 30, 2020

This event is sponsored in part by:

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Latest Blog Posts

“Choose Creativity as a Lifestyle Despite the Horror:” Dorothea Lasky Reads From Animal

“Choose Creativity as a Lifestyle Despite the Horror:” Dorothea Lasky Reads From Animal

December 4, 2019

by Michael Porwoll, 2019-2020 @LA Events Intern “There was a comfort in this shared reality,” Dorothea Lasky read to an at-capacity audience at Literary Arts for Lit Crawl 2019. “This shared imagination.”             Animal, Lasky’s new book of lyric lectures…

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Music Doesn’t Exist in a Vacuum: Shelby Walton-Clark Brings “The Music and the Movement” to Literary Arts

November 26, 2019

by Michael Porwoll, 2019-2020 @ LA Events Intern              American music is inseparable from American history. And music, especially that which proves most socially impactful, is often inseparable from the painful experience of suffering (and triumphing) our nation at its…

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2019 #PDXBookFest Quick Reference Guide: Poetry

October 30, 2019

The Portland Book Festival is a glorious, jam-packed day where you’re invited to choose your own adventure. But we know all the choices can be a little overwhelming. To help you plan your Festival day, we’ve curated a few handy…

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Featured Lecture from the Archives

Malcolm Gladwell: Talking to Strangers

Malcolm Gladwell: Talking to Strangers

December 11, 2019

Bestselling author, New Yorker staffer, and renowned podcast producer, Malcolm Gladwell, discusses his latest book, Talking to Strangers.

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