Tuesday 28 October 2014

friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

friendship poems for kids Biography

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Poetry-writing Hints for Kids, Teachers, Anybody

1. In order to write poetry, read lots of poetry! 
2. Write your words in regular sentences - then take out the unimportant words and maybe add a few important ones. (see ** below) 
3. Experiment with the length of your lines. (see ** below) 
4. Use comparisons. Tell what something reminds you of - maybe the moon reminds you of a pizza pan. You could say "The moon shines like a pizza pan." 
5. Use personification. Pretend what you are writing about is human. "The wind munches the leaves..." 
6. Let your poem do what it wants. Don't try to hold it too tightly to the subject you started with. Let it lead you where it wants to go. 
7. Try "being" what you want to write about. Pretend you are a cat... a car... a basketball... 
8. Keep a journal. 
9. Keep paper and pencil with you at all times. 
10. Keep trying! 
11. Don't try too hard. Just write. It doesn't have to be "good". But every once in a while, it may be! 
12. Use repetition. Or don't. 
13. Use rhyme. Or don't. 
14. Use lively verbs. 
15. Use interesting words, but don't strain too hard for the unusual. 
16. Love words! 
17. Write about what you really want to write about. 
18. Revise - but not too much. 
19. Write freely. You can always change it later. 
20. See hint number one!

  (**) If, at first, you can’t make your writing sound like a poem, try writing your idea out in regular sentences. Then -- cut, cut, cut! Leaving out unnecessary words is a big part of making your writing sound like a poem instead of a story. 
  For instance: 
  You could change: It is snowing this morning. 
  To: Snow this morning 
  You could change: There are lots of red cardinals at our bird feeder. 
  To: Our bird feeder is red with cardinals 
  You’ve gone from 15 to 10 words. 
  Now, read it out loud, and leave out that word “is”:
  Snow, this morning – 
  Our bird feeder 
  red with cardinals 

  Only nine words – and it sounds more like a poem! 
  Also – putting three words on each line gives it a 
  sort of unity . . .and it makes it look like a poem, too. 
Some Things to Remember:
A poem doesn’t have to be long.
A poem doesn’t have to be serious.
A poem doesn’t have to be about important things.
A poem doesn’t have to rhyme.
A poem doesn’t have to be shown to anybody.
A poem doesn’t have to be funny.
A poem doesn’t have to have a message.

BUT…
A poem can be any of these things, and many more.

The only thing a poem really has to do, is to please you, the writer, and make you glad that you wrote it.

Some Ways to Catch a Poem
Fool around with words. Lots of times when I want to write but am having trouble getting started I just begin fooling around with words. I make word lists about certain subjects --maybe name as many animals as I can, list all the words about the beach that I can think of, or write down whatever words come into my head. Sometimes I make lists of rhyming words or words that alliterate.. Doing these things often loosens me up so that suddenly a poem starts!

Just write. Don’t worry about making a “good” poem. Just write. Sometimes, what you write will almost be a poem with no more work. Other times, you can go over what you’ve written later on and turn it into a poem. Sometimes, a few words or sentences will pop out at you and those few words or sentences will make the start (or the middle or the end) of a new poem.

Sit Quietly. Sometimes when you want to write a poem it helps to just sit quietly and wait for a poem-idea to appear. Sit outside, or look out the window, or around your room. Pretend you are a bird-watcher or a fisherman. Be attentive but relaxed. When you “see” a poem starting in your mind or feel the tug of a poem wanting to be written, capture it gently. Try writing it slowly, lazily.

Take a walk. Often, poetry ideas come to me when I am walking. Or while I am doing the dishes, gardening, straightening the house. I’ve had them come when I was painting, weaving a basket, working with clay. It seems as if doing something else --not thinking about poetry --often inspires poems to make an appearance.

friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship
friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship
 

friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship
 friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 
friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 
friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 
friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 
friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship
 
friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 
friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 
friendship poems for kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 

Friday 24 October 2014

Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Narrative Poems For Kids Biography

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Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often making use of the voices of a narrator and characters as well; the entire story is usually written in metred verse. The poems that make up this genre may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be complex. It is usually dramatic, with objectives, diverse characters, and metre.[1] Narrative poems include epics, ballads, idylls, and lays.

Some narrative poetry takes the form of a novel in verse. An example of this is The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning. In terms of narrative poetry, a romance is a narrative poem that tells a story of chivalry. Examples include the Romance of the Rose or Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Although these examples use medieval and Arthurian materials, romances may also tell stories from classical mythology.

Shorter narrative poems are often similar in style to the short story. Sometimes these short narratives are collected into interrelated groups, as with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Some literatures contain prose narratives that include poems and poetic interludes; much Old Irish poetry is contained within prose narratives, and the Old Norse sagas include both incidental poetry and the biographies of poets. An example is "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service.

Oral tradition[edit]
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The Oral Tradition predates essentially all other modern forms of communication. For literally thousands of years, people groups accurately passed on their history through the Oral Tradition from generation to generation. As a clear example and the oldest one comes from Ancient India, the Vedic Chants, which are often considered the oldest unbroken oral tradition in existence today. In addition one of the most notable was the ancient Hebrews, people of the Middle East, they were taught and passed on the stories of God. Surprisingly this tradition lives on even today through such efforts as SimplyTheStory.org, for example, that trains indigenous story tellers in over 115 countries worldwide. The Poetry in the Bible is called the Psalms that capture stories of conquest, failure, confession, and more. Some of it is Narrative in nature.

Historically, much of poetry has its source in an oral tradition: in more recent times the Scots and English ballads, the tales of Robin Hood, of Iskandar, and various Baltic and Slavic heroic poems all were originally intended for recitation, rather than reading. In many cultures, there remains a lively tradition of the recitation of traditional tales in verse formativeness. It has been suggested that some of the distinctive features that distinguish poetry from prose, such as metre, alliteration, and kennings, at one time served as memory aids that allowed the bards who recited traditional tales to reconstruct them from memory.[2]

A Narrative Poem usually tells a story using a poetic theme. Epic poems are very vital to narrative poems, although it is thought that narrative poems were created to explain oral traditions. The focus of narrative poetry is often the pros and cons of life.

Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 

Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 

Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 
Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 
Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 

Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 

Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 

Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 

Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 

Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 

Narrative Poems For Kids
Narrative Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship 

Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Poems For Kids Biography


Source(google.con.pk)

Poetry (verse) is literature that works through sounds and images. It was originally recited (spoken aloud) to an audience, and its rhythms and sounds affect the meaning of the words. Poetic language is concentrated (it says a lot in few words) and expresses feelings and ideas.

ARE THERE DIFFERENT TYPES OF POETRY?
The epic was the earliest type of poem, presenting a long narrative (story) of amazing heroic deeds. Lyric poetry, originally a song for a lyre (an ancient musical instrument), is short and often expresses the poet’s own ideas or feelings. Dramatic poetry is written in the voices of different characters and can be acted.

WHAT IS THE OLDEST POEM?
The oldest written poem is the Epic of Gilgamesh from Babylon. It is about 4,000 years old and tells the story of a king, Gilgamesh, who was half-man, half-god. The oldest poem in English is Beowulf, written in the 8th century AD. This 3,000-line epic is about a Scandinavian hero, Beowulf, who saves the Danes from two monsters—Grendel and its mother.

WHAT ARE POETIC DEVICES?
Poetic devices are the special tricks and techniques that make poetry different from everyday language. Alliteration repeats consonants, as in “slithering snake”—the repeated use of the “s” makes us think of the sound a snake makes, which strengthens the image. Other common devices are metaphor and simile, both forms of comparison. A simile uses “like” or “as”: “My love is like a red, red rose.” A metaphor does not: “My love is a red rose.”

WHAT IS METER?
Meter is the rhythm of a poem. Rhythm is created by the stressed (long) and unstressed (short) syllables (parts of a word) in a line. Short and long syllables are arranged in fixed patterns known as feet. A foot with a long and a short syllable is called a trochee. A line with ten syllables is called a pentameter.

DO POEMS ALWAYS HAVE RHYME AND RHYTHM?
Rhyme (when words sound the same) does not always suit the subject or feeling of a poem, so many poets write poetry that does not rhyme, called blank verse. Paradise Lost, the epic poem by John Milton (1608–1674), does not rhyme but has a particular meter (rhythm). Poetry without meter is called free verse.

IS A VERSE THE SAME AS A STANZA?
Verse can mean poetry in general, or it can mean a paragraph of poetry, also called a stanza. Traditionally, a stanza contains no more than 12 lines. A two-line stanza is called a couplet, and a four-line couplet is a quatrain.

Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship
 

Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship
Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship


Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Biography

Source(google.com.pk)
Introduction:

An acrostic poem is a poem where certain letters in each line spells out a word or phrase. Typically, the first letters of a line are used to spell the message; but, they can appear anywhere.

Acrostic Poems Using the First Letter
Here are some examples:

Spelling out "candy"...

Crunchy chewy

Awesome

Nice and sweet

Delightful and delicious

Yummy treat

Spelling out "cats"...

Cuddly

Acrobatic

Tenacious and terrifying

Softly purring

Spelling out "fear"...

Frightening

Eerie and strange

Anxiety rises

Ready to flee

Spelling out "spring"...

Sunny days

Plants awakening

Raindrops on the roof

Interesting clouds

New flowers

Gray skies

Spelling out "house"...

Home

Open and inviting

Universal

Safe and warm

Everything

Acrostic Poems Using Different Positions
Here are some examples:

Spelling out "poem"...

Pick uP a pen

Think of a tOpic

Be crEative

Use your iMagination

Spelling out "food"...

Chicken or beeF

Rice or potatO

Broccoli or tomatO

White wine or reD

Spelling out "sports"...

FootballS and basketballs

UmPires and refs

Defending yOur goal

ScoRing goals

A real Team effort

Crowd goeS wild

Spelling out "star"...

Shines and twinkleS

In the nighT

There is a plethorA

Forever and eveR

Spellling out "school"...

RowS of desks

TeaChers explain

Pencils sHarpened

Going Over the facts

Writing pOems and essays

The belL rings, finally

Acrostic Poems with Names
Here are some examples:

Spelling out "Marion"...

Magnificent, a creature of wonder

Alluring, so attractive

Reliable, a buddy you can count on

Interesting, truly fascinating

Obliging, willing to accommodate

Nice, a sweet soul

Spelling out "Betty"...

Beaming, so joyful

Elegant, so graceful

Tantalizing, thrilling the senses

Thorough, attentive to details

Yearning, a drive to succeed

Spelling out "Sophia"...

Serene, a calming quality

Organized, you always have it together

Picturesque, strikingly beautiful

Honest, so genuine

Imaginative, a creative mind

Alluring, so attractive

Spelling out "Roberto"...

Rebellious, going against the grain

Oomph, you have a magnetic draw

Buoyant, abound with energy

Enchanting, a charming presence

Reassuring, a comforting presence

Trustworthy, your word is good as gold

Obliging, willing to accommodate

Spelling out "Willliam"...

Worthy, your friendship is a gift

Illustrious, bright and accomplished

Lively, the life of the party

Light-hearted, you have an easy laughter

Inspirational, the ability to motivate

Approachable, people turn to you for help

Merry, abundant joy

Acrostic Poems in Literature
Here are some examples:

From Edgar Allan Poe...

Elizabeth it is in vain you say

"Love not" — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:

In vain those words from thee or L. E. L.

Zantippe's talents had enforced so well:

Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,

Breathe it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.

Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried

To cure his love — was cured of all beside —

His folly — pride — and passion — for he died.

From "John Keats"...

Kind sister! aye, this third name says you are;

Enchanted has it been the Lord knows where;

And may it taste to you like good old wine,

Take you to real happiness and give

Sons, daughters and a home like honied hive.

From Lewis Carroll - Spelling out names...

Little maidens, when you look

On this little story-book,

Reading with attentive eye

Its enticing history,

Never think that hours of play

Are your only HOLIDAY. (Lorina)

And that in a HOUSE of joy

Lessons serve but to annoy:

If in any HOUSE you find

Children of a gentle mind,

Each the others pleasing ever. (Alice)

Each the others vexing never—

Daily work and pastime daily

In their order taking gaily—

Then be very sure that they

Have a life of HOLIDAY. (Edith)

More Acrostic Poems in Literature

Anemones you brought back from the path

Nod in a glass beside our rumpled bed.

Now you are far away. In the aftermath

Even these flowers arouse my sleepy head.

Love, when I think of the ready look in your eyes,

Erotas that would make these stone walls blush

Nerves me to write away the morning's hush.

Nadir of longing, and the red anemones

Over the lucent rim-my poor designs,

X-rated praise I've hidden between these lines. - David Mason

Try as I might I can't get out of bed, stuck to it with fear

Every inch and the horrid shadows get so near

Rogues I can only think of lurk in my dreams

'Run downstairs', I tell myself, 'No more screams!'

Open the door and fear stands in your way

'Ruthless thoughts, go away, I want to have my own say!' - Ella Bella (theguardian.com)

Acrostic poems are a fun way to enjoy poetry with a special twist.

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Acrostic Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Spring Poems For Kids Poems For Kids About School That Rhyme Shel Silverstein in English To Recite About Friends in Urdu About Friendship

Spring Poems For Kids Biography


Source(google.com.pk)
Spring poems, a celebration of the season, are written by poets in every generation. Spring is when the earth itself writes poetry and the very air becomes the poet's muse. It is no coincidence that America's National Poetry Month is in April.

This poetry collection contains the best new poems as well as the most-loved poems from previous generations. There is also a section of spring poems for kids. You can use the Table of Contents to find the section you want, or just scroll down the page to read them all.
W.S. Merwin is a prolific, leading American writer whose poetry, translations, and prose have won praise over seven decades. His first book, A Mask for Janus (1952),  was chosen by W.H. Auden for the Yale Younger Poets Prize. Though that first book reflected the formalism of the period, Merwin eventually became known for an impersonal, open style that eschewed punctuation. Writing in the Guardian, Jay Parini described Merwin’s mature style as “his own kind of free verse, [where] he layered image upon bright image, allowing the lines to hang in space, largely without punctuation, without rhymes ... with a kind of graceful urgency.” Although Merwin’s writing has undergone stylistic changes through the course of his career, a recurring theme is man’s separation from nature. The poet sees the consequences of that alienation as disastrous, both for the human race and for the rest of the world. Merwin, who is a practicing Buddhist as well as a proponent of deep ecology, has lived since the late 1970s on an old pineapple plantation in Hawaii which he has painstakingly restored to its original rainforest state.

Merwin was born in New York City in 1927 and raised in New Jersey and Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of a Presbyterian minister. Of his development as a writer, Merwin once said, “I started writing hymns for my father almost as soon as I could write at all, illustrating them ... But the first real writers that held me were not poets: Conrad first, and then Tolstoy, and it was not until I had received a scholarship and gone away to the university that I began to read poetry steadily and try incessantly, and with abiding desperation, to write it.” Merwin attended Princeton University and studied with R.P. Blackmur and John Berryman. After graduating in 1948, he continued as a post-graduate student of Romance languages and eventually traveled through much of Europe, translating poetry and working as a tutor, including for the son of poet Robert Graves. Merwin’s early collections—especially A Mask for Janus—reflect the influence of Graves and the medieval poetry Merwin was translating at the time.

Indeed, the poetic forms of many eras and societies are the foundation for a great deal of Merwin’s poetry. His first books contain many pieces inspired by diverse, classical models. According to Vernon Young in the American Poetry Review, the poems are traceable to “Biblical tales, Classical myth, love songs from the Age of Chivalry, Renaissance retellings; they comprise carols, roundels, odes, ballads, sestinas, and they contrive golden equivalents of emblematic models: the masque, the Zodiac, the Dance of Death.” In 1956, Merwin was offered a fellowship from the Poets’ Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts and returned to the U.S. His books from this period, Green with Beasts (1956) and The Drunk in the Furnace (1960), show the beginning of a shift in style and tone as Merwin began to experiment with irregular forms. The Drunk in the Furnace, which was written during Merwin’s tenure in Boston when he was meeting poets like Robert Lowell, particularly shows his new engagement with American themes. His obsession with the meaning of America and its values can make Merwin sometimes seem like the great nineteenth-century poet Walt Whitman, critic Ed Folsom noted in Shenandoah: “His poetry ... often implicitly and sometimes explicitly responds to Whitman; his twentieth-century sparsity and soberness—his doubts about the value of America—answer, temper, Whitman’s nineteenth-century expansiveness and exuberance—his enthusiasm over the American creation.”

Merwin’s next books are his most critically acclaimed and continue to be influential volumes. The Lice (1967), though often read as a response to the Vietnam War, condemns modern man in apocalyptic and visionary terms. “These are poems not written to an agenda but that create an agenda,” wrote poet and critic Reginald Shepherd, “preserving and recreating the world in passionate words. Merwin has always been concerned with the relationship between morality and aesthetics, weighing both terms equally. His poems speak back to the fallen world not as tracts but as artistic events.” The Lice remains one of Merwin’s best-known volumes of poetry. His next book, The Carrier of Ladders (1970) won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1971. He famously donated the prize money to the draft resistance movement, writing an essay for the New York Review of Books that outlined his objections to the Vietnam War. His article spiked the ire of W.H. Auden, who wrote a response arguing that the award was apolitical. The Carrier of Ladders shows Merwin continuing to engage with American themes and nature, and includes a long sequence on American westward expansion. That same year, Merwin published The Miner’s Pale Children: A Book of Prose. Reviewing both volumes for the New York Times, Helen Vendler noted that “these books invoke by their subtitles the false distinction between prose and poetry: the real distinction is between prose and verse, since both are books of poems, with distinct resemblances and a few differences.”

Merwin moved to Hawaii to study Zen Buddhism in 1976. He eventually settled in Maui and began to restore the forest surrounding his former plantation. Both the rigor of practicing Buddhism and the tropical landscape have greatly influenced Merwin’s later style. His next books increasingly show his preoccupation with the natural world. The Compass Flower (1977), Opening the Hand (1983), and The Rain in the Trees (1988) “are concerned not only with what to renounce in the metropolis but also what to preserve in the country,” noted Ed Hirsch in the New York Times. Many of the poems in the last volume “immerse themselves in nature with a fresh sense of numinousness,” said Hirsch, while also mourning the loss of that nature to human greed and destruction. Merwin has continued to produce striking poems using nature as a backdrop. The Vixen (1996), for instance, is an exploration of the rural forest in southwestern France that Merwin called home for many years. Poet-critic J. D. McClatchy remarked in the New Yorker that “the book is suffused with details of country life—solitary walks and garden work, woodsmoke, birdsong, lightfall.” But Merwin’s later poetry doesn’t merely describe the natural world; it also records and condemns the destruction of nature, from the felling of sacred forests to the extinction of whole species. Migration: New and Selected Poems (2005) exposes Merwin’s evolution as a stylist over half a century but also shows, as Ben Lerner noted in his review of the volume for Jacket, that “Merwin ... is an unwaveringly political poet ...  [he] not only tracks the literal impoverishment of our planet, but he makes it symbolize the impoverishment of our culture’s capacity for symbolization.” Migration was awarded the National Book Award for poetry.

Some literary critics have identified Merwin with the group known as the oracular poets, but Merwin himself once commented: “I have not evolved an abstract aesthetic theory and am not aware of belonging to any particular group of writers.” Reviewing Migration for the New York Times, Dan Chiasson described Merwin poems as “secular prophecy grounded on perceptual fineness.” But while Merwin’s work from the 1960s and early ‘70s perhaps best embody this mode, Chiasson believed that “its signature open form has been preserved whatever the occasion. What began as stylistic necessity has become a mannerism.” Merwin has continued to win high praise for his poetry, however, including the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for his collection The Shadow of Sirius (2008). The book’s three sections deal with childhood and memory, death and wisdom, and are some of the most autobiographical of his career. The Pulitzer Prize committee cited the book for its “luminous, often-tender poems that focus on the profound power of memory.”

In addition to writing poetry, prose and drama, Merwin is an accomplished and prolific translator of poetry. Merwin has also translated poets as diverse as Osip Mandelstam and Pablo Neruda. His translation of Dante’s Purgatorio (2000) and the Middle English epic Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2004) both won high praise for their graceful, accessible language, and his Selected Translations (2013) won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award.

Merwin has won most awards available to American poets, including the Bollingen Prize, two Pulitzer Prizes, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, a Ford Foundation grant, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the PEN Translation Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Wallace Stevens Award, and a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award. He has also been awarded fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Merwin is a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and two-time U.S. poet laureate (1999-2000, 2010-2011).

Merwin was once asked what social role a poet plays—if any—in America. He commented: “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? ... We keep expressing our anger and our love, and we hope, hopelessly perhaps, that it will have some effect. But I certainly have moved beyond the despair, or the searing, dumb vision that I felt after writing The Lice; one can’t live only in despair and anger without eventually destroying the thing one is angry in defense of. The world is still here, and there are aspects of human life that are not purely destructive, and there is a need to pay attention to the things around us while they are still around us. And you know, in a way, if you don’t pay that attention, the anger is just bitterness.”


[Updated 2010]

CAREER

Poet. Tutor in France and Portugal, 1949; tutor of Robert Graves's son in Majorca, 1950; lived in London, England, 1951-54, supporting himself largely by doing translations of Spanish and French classics for British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Third Programme; playwright for Poets' Theatre, Cambridge, MA, 1956; lived in New York, NY, 1961-63; associated with Roger Planchon's Theatre de la Cite, Lyon, France, ten months during 1964-65; moved to Hawaii in the late 1970s. In 1999, Merwin was named Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress for a jointly-held position with poets Rita Dove and Louise Glück.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

POETRY
A Mask for Janus, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1952.
The Dancing Bears, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1954.
Green with Beasts, Knopf (New York, NY), 1956.
The Drunk in the Furnace, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1960.
The Moving Target, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1963.
Collected Poems, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1966.
The Lice, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1969.
Animae, Kayak (San Francisco, CA), 1969.
The Carrier of Ladders, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1970.
(With A.D. Moore) Signs, Stone Wall Press (Iowa City, IA), 1970.
Asian Figures, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1973.
Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1973.
The First Four Books of Poems (contains A Mask for Janus, The Dancing Bears, Green with Beasts, and The Drunk in the Furnace), Atheneum (New York, NY), 1975.
The Compass Flower, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1977.
Feathers from the Hill, Windhover (Iowa City, IA), 1978.
Finding the Islands, North Point Press (San Francisco, CA), 1982.
Opening the Hand, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1983.
The Rain in the Trees: Poems, Knopf (New York, NY), 1988.
Selected Poems, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1988.
Travels: Poems, Knopf (New York, NY), 1993.
The Vixen: Poems, Knopf (New York, NY), 1996.
Flower and Hand: Poems, 1977-1983, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 1996.
East Window: The Asian Poems, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 1998.
The River Sound: Poems, Knopf (New York, NY), 1999.
The Pupil, Knopf (New York, NY), 2001.
Migration: New and Selected Poems, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 2005.
Present Company, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 2005.
The Shadow of Sirius, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 2008.
The Collected Poems of W.S. Merwin, Library of America (New York), 2013.
The Moon Before Morning, Coppery Canyon Press(Port Townsend, WA), 2014.
Contributor to numerous anthologies. Merwin's poems have been recorded for the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, 1994. Contributor to magazines, including Nation, Harper's, Poetry, New Yorker, Atlantic, Kenyon Review, and Evergreen Review. Poetry editor, Nation, 1962. A reader, with others, on sound recordings, including Poetry and the American People: Reading, Voice, and Publication in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Library of Congress Bicentennial Symposium, 2000; Poetry in America: Favorite Poems: An Evening of Readings and a Special Favorite Poem Audio and Video Presentation, Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 2000; An Evening of Dante in English Translation, Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 2000. The W.S. Merwin Archive in the Rare Book Room of the University Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign contains notes, drafts, and manuscripts of published and unpublished work by Merwin from the mid-1940s to the early 1980s.

PROSE
The Miner's Pale Children, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1970, reprinted, Holt (New York, NY), 1994.
Houses and Travellers, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1977, reprinted, Holt (New York, NY), 1994.
Unframed Originals: Recollections, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1982.
The Lost Upland, Knopf (New York, NY), 1992.
The Folding Cliffs: A Narrative, Knopf (New York, NY), 1998.
The Mays of Ventadorn (National Geographic Direction Series), National Geographic (Washington, DC), 2002.
The Ends of the Earth, Shoemaker & Hoard (Washington, DC), 2004.
Unchopping a Tree, drawings by Elizabeth Ward, Trinity University Press (San Antonio), 2014.
EDITOR

West Wind: Supplement of American Poetry, Poetry Book Society (London, England), 1961.
Lament for the Makers: A Memorial Anthology, Counterpoint (Washington, DC), 1996.
TRANSLATOR

The Poem of the Cid, Dent (London, England), 1959, New American Library (New York, NY), 1962.
(Contributor) Eric Bentley, editor, The Classic Theatre, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1961.
The Satires of Persius, Indiana University Press (Bloomington, IN), 1961.
Some Spanish Ballads, Abelard (London, England), 1961, published as Spanish Ballads, Doubleday Anchor (New York, NY), 1961.
The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes: His Fortunes and Adversities,Doubleday Anchor (New York, NY), 1962.
(Contributor) Medieval Epics, Modern Library (New York, NY), 1963.
(With Denise Levertov, William Carlos Williams, and others) Nicanor Parra, Poems and Antipoems, New Directions (New York, NY), 1968.
Jean Follain, Transparence of the World, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1969, reprinted, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 2003.
W.S. Merwin: Selected Translations, 1948-1968, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1969.
(And author of introduction) S. Chamfort, Products of the Perfected Civilization: Selected Writings of Chamfort, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1969.
Porchia, Voices: Selected Writings of Antonio Porchia, Follett (Chicago, IL), 1969, reprinted, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 2003.
Pablo Neruda, Twenty Poems and a Song of Despair, Cape (London, England), 1969, reprinted, with introduction by Christina García, illustrations by Pablo Picasso, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 2004.
(With others) Pablo Neruda, Selected Poems, Dell (New York, NY), 1970.
(With Clarence Brown) Osip Mandelstam, Selected Poems, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1973, reprinted as The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam, New York Review of Books (New York, NY), 2004.
(With J. Moussaieff Mason) Sanskrit Love Poetry, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1977, published as Peacock's Egg: Love Poems from Ancient India, North Point Press (San Francisco, CA), 1981.
Roberto Juarroz, Vertical Poems, Kayak (San Francisco, CA), 1977.
(With George E. Dimock, Jr.) Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulius, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1978.
Selected Translations, 1968-78, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1979.
Robert the Devil, Windhover (Iowa City, IA), 1981.
Four French Plays, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1984.
From the Spanish Morning, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1984.
Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, Knopf (New York, NY), 2000.
Gawain and the Green Knight, a New Verse Translation, Knopf (New York, NY), 2004.
Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 2013.
Selected Translations: Translations from 1948-2010, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 2013.
Also translator of Lope de Rueda, "Eufemia," in Tulane Drama Review, December, 1958; Lesage, "Crispin," in Tulane Drama Review; Lope Felix de Vega Carpio, Punishment without Vengeance, 1958; Federico García Lorca, "Yerma" and "Blood," 1969.

PLAYS
(With Dido Milroy) Darkling Child, produced, 1956.
Favor Island, produced at Poets' Theatre, Cambridge, MA, 1957, and on British Broadcasting Corporation Third Programme, 1958.
The Gilded West, produced at Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, England, 1961.
FURTHER READING

BOOKS
Brunner, Edward J., Poetry As Labor and Privilege: The Writings of W.S. Merwin, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 1991.
Christhilf, Mark, W.S. Merwin the Mythmaker, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, MO), 1986.
Contemporary Literary Criticism, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 1, 1973, Volume 2, 1974, Volume 3, 1975, Volume 5, 1976, Volume 8, 1978, Volume 13, 1980, Volume 18, 1981.
Contemporary Poets, 6th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.
Davis, Cheri, W.S. Merwin, Twayne (Boston, MA), 1981.
Dickey, James, Babel to Byzantium, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1968.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 5: American Poets since World War II, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1980.
Hix, H. L., Understanding W.S. Merwin, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 1997.
Hoeppner, Edward Haworth, Echoes and Moving Fields: Structure and Subjectivity in the Poetry of W.S. Merwin and John Ashbery, Associated University Presses (Cranberry, NJ), 1994.
Howard, Richard, Alone with America: Essays on the Art of Poetry in the United States since 1950, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1969.
Hungerford, Edward, Poets in Progress, Northwestern University Press (Evanston, IL), 1962.
Nelson, Cary, and Ed Folsom, editors, W.S. Merwin: Essays on the Poetry, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 1987.
Poetry for Students, Volume 5, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1999.
Rexroth, Kenneth, With Eye and Ear, Herder (New York, NY), 1970.
Rexroth, Kenneth, American Poetry in the Twentieth Century, Herder (New York, NY), 1971.
Rosenthal, M. L., The Modern Poets: A Critical Introduction, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1960.
Shaw, Robert B., editor, American Poetry since 1960: Some Critical Perspectives, Dufour (Chester Springs, PA), 1974.
Stepanchev, Stephen, American Poetry since 1945, Harper (New York, NY), 1965.
PERIODICALS
American Poetry Review, January-February, 1978;May-June 2004, Margaret Atwood, review of The Mays of Ventadorn, p. 29.
Antioch Review, winter, 2006, F.D. Reeve, review of Migration: New and Selected Poems, p. 189.
Booklist, November 1, 1996, review of Lament for the Makers: A Memorial Anthology, p. 476; January 1, 1999, review of The Folding Cliffs: A Narrative, p. 777; March 15, 1999, review of The Folding Cliffs, p. 1276; June 1, 2002, Will Hickman, review of The Mays of Ventadorn, p. 1668; September 1, 2005, Donna Seaman, review of Present Company and Summer Doorways, p. 43.
Chicago Tribune Book World, December 26, 1982.
Commonweal, June 18, 1999, review of The Folding Cliffs, p. 24.
Concerning Poetry, spring, 1975.
Furioso, spring, 1953.
Hudson Review, winter, 1967-68; summer, 1973; spring, 1999, review of The Folding Cliffs, p. 141.
Iowa Review, winter, 1982, Cary Nelson and Ed Folsom, "Fact Has Two Faces: An Interview with W.S. Merwin," pp. 30-66.
Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2004, review of The Ends of the Earth: Essays, p.260; July 1, 2005, review of Summer Doorways, p. 721.
Library Journal, January, 1996, p. 104; October 15, 1998, review of The Folding Cliffs, p. 74; November 1, 1996, review of Lament for the Makers, p. 71; November 15, 2001, Ellen Kaufman, review of The Pupil: Poems, p. 71; July, 2004, Maureen J. Delaney-Lehman, review of The Ends of the Earth, p. 83; September 1, 2005, Fred Muratori, review of Present Company, p. 147.
Los Angeles Times, August 21, 1983.
Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 21, 1983.
Modern Language Quarterly, March, 1983, pp. 65-79; September, 1988, pp. 262-284.
Modern Poetry Studies, winter, 1975.
Nation, December 14, 1970; December 12, 1994, Gerald Stern, "The Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize-1994," p. 733.
New Leader, January 13, 1997, review of Lament for the Makers, p. 15; December 14, 1998, review of The Folding Cliffs, p. 23.
New Mexico Quarterly, autumn, 1964.
New Republic, March 22, 1999, review of The River Sound: Poems and The Folding Cliffs, p. 40.
New Yorker, June 3, 1996, J. D. McClatchy, review of The Vixen: Poems, p. 92; December, 7, 1998, review of The Folding Cliffs, p. 200.
New York Review of Books, May 6, 1971; September 20, 1973; March 27, 1997, review of The Vixen and Lament for the Makers, p. 18.
New York Times Book Review, October 18, 1970; June 19, 1977; August 1, 1982; October 9, 1983; April 4, 1999, Melanie Rehak, "Poetic Justice"; June 6, 1999, review of The River Sound, p. 37; December 5, 1999, review of The River Sound, p. 78.
New York Times Magazine, February 19, 1995, p. 39.
Ontario Review, fall-winter, 1977-78.
Partisan Review, summer, 1958; winter, 1971-72.
Poet and Critic, spring, 1990, pp. 37-40.
Poetry, May, 1953; May, 1961; February, 1963; June, 1964; August, 1974; November, 2005, David Biespiel, "Iron Man," p. 137.
Prairie Schooner, fall, 1957; fall, 1962; winter, 1962-63; fall, 1968; winter, 1971-72.
Publishers Weekly, November, 27, 1995, p. 65; February 24, 1997, review of Flower and Hand: Poems, 1977-1983, p. 86; August 15, 2005, review of Present Company, p. 35.
Sewanee Review, spring, 1974.
Shenandoah, spring, 1968; winter, 1970; spring, 1978.
Southern Review, April, 1980.
Village Voice, July 4, 1974.
Virginia Quarterly Review, summer, 1973; spring, 1997, review of Lament for the Makers, p. 48; spring, 1999, review of The Folding Cliffs, p. 67; autumn, 1999, review of The River Sound, p. 136.
Voices, January-April, 1953; May-August, 1957; September-December, 1961.
Washington Post Book World, August 31, 1975; September 18, 1977; August 15, 1982; June 3, 1984.
Western Humanities Review, spring, 1970; spring, 1971.
Western Review, spring, 1955.
World Literature Today, autumn, 1996, review of The Vixen, p. 964; spring, 1997, review of Lament for the Makers, p. 391; autumn, 2000, review of The River Sound, p. 820; April-June 2003, John Boening, review of The Pupil, p. 104.

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