WS Merwin wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Just came across the announcement. I haven’t read The Shadow of Sirius yet, so it’s another one to add to my list.

He’s been one of my favourite American poets for quite a while. Ever since I read “Place” in Bill Moyers’ anthology The Language of Life (a book that I recommend very highly). Then I came across “Separation“, and fell irrevocably in awe. His poems are so … still. So complete. They’re poems that call me back again and again and again.

And I love his comment about form:

I don’t have any kind of religious principles about whether things should be rhymed, metered or free verse. A poem takes its own form and all of those things are good.

Amen to that!