Merwin reads his poem "Yesterday" in this excerpt of video from the Bill Moyers programs on poetry recorded at the Dodge Poetry Festivals. (You should watch it all - but Merwin appears at the 5:30 point in the video.)
The poem is the model for our October writing prompt at Poets Online.
But, lest you think Merwin to be a cold poet based on this one poem, I would also recommend his translation of Pablo Neruda's poetry.
It's a collection that Neruda published at the age of 19 (in 1924) and that was considered scandalous then and, in this translation, its intense sexuality is intact.
Samples:
I have gone marking the atlas of your body
with crosses of fire.
My mouth went across: a spider, trying to hide.
In you, behind you, timid, driven by thirst.
and
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.
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