Friday, July 2, 2010

Number 17

Look at me, posting on a Friday night. It's past my bedtime but I just HAD to do a post on the brand spankin' new poet laureate of the USA: W.S. Merwin.

The announcement came yesterday so I began looking up some of his stuff online. It's good stuff, too. Turns out the 82 year old Merwin has racked up bookoos of awards including 2 Pulitzer Prizes for poetry. So now he has a year to further the cause, to expand our minds, to get us all to appreciate the written and spoken word, you know, to make poetry totally cool. Kind of like what I try to do here on Poetry Fridays, ha!

Anywho, here's a wonderful poem by the 17th U.S. Poet Laureate, W.S. Merwin, called 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 traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
...(head on over to the Poetry Foundation to continue reading.)

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2 comments:

  1. Nice poem. Embarrassed to admit that I sometimes need a translation. And punctuation. But, I'm glad I now know how to spell bookoo.

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  2. Loved the poem! Thanks for posting it, and the friday story about this brand new poet Laureate!

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