Merwin, W S

Merwin, W(illiam) S(tanley)

(born Sept. 30, 1927, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. poet and translator. He attended Princeton University and earned critical acclaim with his first poetry collection, A Mask for Janus (1952). He became known for the spare style of his poetry, which often expresses concerns about the natural environment and our relation to it. His volumes include The Lice (1967), The Carrier of Ladders (1970, Pulitzer Prize), and Travels (1993). His translations, often collaborations with others, range from plays of Euripides and Federico García Lorca to epics to ancient and modern works from Chinese, Sanskrit, and Japanese.