Wednesday on the NewsHour: W.S. Merwin

As one of the country’s leading poets for decades and author of more than 50 books of verse, translation and prose, W.S. Merwin has won just about every major award available, from his first volume in 1952, “A Mask for Janus,” which was selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets to his most recent in 2009, “The Shadow of Sirius,” which earned him his second Pulitzer Prize.

In July, Merwin was named the nation’s 17th Consultant in Poetry for the Library of Congress. Jeffrey Brown spoke to Merwin about his new role, poetry’s standing in today’s culture and “living off the grid” in Hawaii. We’ll post that conversation here later. In the meantime, watch Merwin read four of his poems:

Editor’s note: In 2008, Jeffrey Brown visited Merwin in New York. Watch that segment here.