MERWIN, W.S.

born Sept. 30, 1927, New York, N.Y., U.S. in full William Stanley Merwin American poet and translator known for the spare style of his poetry, in which he expressed his concerns about the alienation of humans from their environment. After graduating from Princeton University (B.A., 1947), Merwin worked as a tutor in Europe and as a freelance translator. He was playwright in residence at the Poet's Theatre, Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1956 to 1957 and poetry editor of The Nation (1962). Critical acclaim for Merwin began with his first collection of poetry, A Mask for Janus (1952). His early poems include both lyrical works and philosophical narratives based on myths and folk tales. His subsequent collections include Green with Beasts (1956), The Drunk in the Furnace (1960), and The Moving Target (1963). The poems of The Lice (1967) reflect the poet's despair over human mistreatment of the rest of creation. Merwin won a Pulitzer Prize for The Carrier of Ladders (1970). Among his later poetic works are The Compass Flower (1977), Finding the Islands (1982), The Rain in the Trees (1988), and Travels (1993). In 1994 Merwin was awarded the first annual Tanning Prize from the Academy of American Poets for his outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry. Merwin's translations, often done in collaboration with others, range from plays of Euripides and Federico Garca Lorca to the epics The Poem of the Cid and The Song of Roland to ancient and modern works from Chinese, Sanskrit, and Japanese.