Migration: New and Selected Poems

Migration: New and Selected Poems gathers the best of W. S. Merwin's poetry from fifteen earlier collections, chosen by Merwin himself, along with a group of new poems. Covering more than fifty years of work in a volume of over five hundred pages, the book traces his development from the formal verse of his early career to the open, unpunctuated style for which he became known. Throughout, Merwin writes about the natural world, the loss of species and landscapes, memory, language and the connections between all living things. Many of the later poems reflect his long life in Hawaii, where he worked to restore a native forest. For readers new to Merwin, the collection serves as a broad introduction; for longtime readers it offers a single record of a major American poetic career. It won the 2005 National Book Award for Poetry.