W.S. Merwin in Memoriam

The Kenyon Review offers readers In Memoriam, “a space for remembering notable contributors to the pages of KR. We regret the loss of their voices from the world of arts and letters.”

In honor of W.S. Merwin, Kenyon Review  Poetry Editor David Baker writes, “No contemporary poet’s work has meant more to me than W. S. Merwin’s. We first met in 1979, when I was a twenty-four-year-old high school English teacher in Jefferson City, Missouri; we played pool at Dave’s Bar in Kansas City one night, and he told me I shouldn’t go do my PhD but stay out of academia and write.”

Read the rest of Baker’s comments here along with Merwin’s works published in KR and a link to video interview with KR editor David Lynn and David Baker upon Merwin’s accepting the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement in 2010.