W.S. Merwin, U.S. Poet Laureate, to speak at LRU

W.S. Merwin, who was named U.S. Poet Laureate on July 1, will give a free, public reading at Lenoir-Rhyne University on Nov. 2 as part of the university’s 2010-2011 Visiting Writers Series.

The Poet Laureate is appointed annually by the Librarian of Congress and serves from October to May. James H. Billington, librarian of congress, said, “William Merwin’s poems are often profound and, at the same time, accessible to a vast audience. He leads us upstream from the flow of everyday things in life to half-hidden headwaters of wisdom about life itself.”

During his or her term, the U.S. Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry.

Merwin will discuss his work and read from his poetry at 7 p.m. Nov. 2 in the Belk Centrum on the Lenoir-Rhyne University campus.

During a 60-year writing career, Merwin has received nearly every major literary award. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, in 2009 for “The Shadow of Sirius” and in 1971 for “The Carriers of Ladders.”

Born in 1927, Merwin showed an early interest in language and music, writing hymns for his father, a Presbyterian minister. He studied poetry at Princeton and, in 1952, his first book, “A Mask for Janus,” was selected by W.H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award.

The author of more than 30 books of poetry and prose, Merwin’s influence on American poetry is profound. Often noted by critics is his decision, in the 1960s, to relinquish the use of punctuation. “I had come to feel that punctuation stapled the poems to the page,” Merwin wrote in his introduction to “The Second Four Books of Poems.” “Whereas I wanted the poems to evoke the spoken language, and wanted the hearing of them to be essential to taking them in.”

Merwin also has been long dedicated to translating poetry and plays from a wide array of languages, including Spanish and French. “I started translating partly as a discipline, hoping that the process might help me to learn to write.”

In 1976, Merwin moved to Hawaii, where he and his wife Paula have fashioned a quiet life in beautiful, natural surroundings.

Dr. Rand Brandes, Martin Luther Stevens Professor of English and the director of the Lenoir-Rhyne Visiting Writers Series, encourages area readers to read the works of Merwin and the other Visiting Writers before coming to see them in person at Lenoir-Rhyne. This series is always free and open to the public, thanks to the generosity of sponsors.

This year’s sponsors include the following: Our State Magazine, North Carolina Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, United Arts Council of Catawba County, Catawba Valley Community Foundation, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, Crowne Plaza Hickory, Hickory Public Library, and Barnes & Noble.

For additional information about the upcoming Lenoir-Rhyne University Visiting Writers Series, go to http://visitingwriters.lr.edu.