{"product_id":"the-river-sound-isbn-9780375704352","title":"The River Sound","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and “one of the greatest poets of our age … the Thoreau of our era” (Edward Hirsch) comes a masterly work of poems, exhibiting the artistry and style he made his own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA strikingly beautiful book of poems from one of our finest poets. To his lyrics Merwin adds three long narrative poems: \"Lament for the Makers\" is his tribute to fellow poets who are gone and who had his admiration, from Dylan Thomas to James Merrill; \"Testimony\" is a tour de force, an autobiographical poem in the manner of Francois Villon; \"Suite in the Key of Forgetting\" is a remarkable poem about memory and memories.\"One of the greatest poets of our age. He is a rare spiritual presence in American life and letters (the Thoreau of our era).” —Edward Hirsch\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“One of the most distinctive and original voices in American poetry\" —\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003eW. S. MERWIN was born in New York City in 1927 and grew up in Union City, New Jersey, and in Scranton, Pennsylvania. From 1949 to 1951 he worked as a tutor in France, Portugal, and Majorca, and over the course of his life, he lived in many parts of the world.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eHe was the recipient of many awards and prizes, including the Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry, the Governor's Award for Literature of the state of Hawaii, the Tanning Prize for mastery in the art of poetry, a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. He died in 2019.WAVES IN AUGUST\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is a war in the distance\u003cbr\u003ewith the distance growing smaller\u003cbr\u003ethe field glasses lying at hand\u003cbr\u003eare for keeping it far away\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI thought I was getting better\u003cbr\u003eabout that returning childish\u003cbr\u003ewish to be living somewhere else\u003cbr\u003ethat I knew was impossible\u003cbr\u003eand now I find myself wishing\u003cbr\u003eto be here to be alive here\u003cbr\u003eit is impossible enough\u003cbr\u003eto still be the wish of a child\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ein youth I hid a boat under\u003cbr\u003ethe bushes beside the water\u003cbr\u003eknowing I would want it later\u003cbr\u003eand come back and would find it there\u003cbr\u003esomeone else took it and left me\u003cbr\u003einstead the sound of the water\u003cbr\u003ewith its whisper of vertigo\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eterror reassurance an old\u003cbr\u003eold sadness it would seem we knew\u003cbr\u003eenough always about parting\u003cbr\u003ebut we have to go on learning\u003cbr\u003eas long as there is anything\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE CAUSEWAY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is the bridge where at dusk they hear voices\u003cbr\u003efar out in the meres and marshes or they say they hear voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe bridge shakes and no one else is crossing at this hour\u003cbr\u003esomewhere along here is where they hear voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethis is the only bridge though it keeps changing\u003cbr\u003efrom which some always say they hear voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe sounds pronounce an older utterance out of the shadows\u003cbr\u003esometimes stifled sometimes carried from clear voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewhat can be recognized in the archaic syllables\u003cbr\u003efrightens many and tells others not to fear voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003etravellers crossing the bridge have forgotten where they were going\u003cbr\u003ein a passage between the remote and the near voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethere is a tale by now of a bridge a long time before this one\u003cbr\u003ealready old before the speech of our day and the mere voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewhen the Goths were leaving their last kingdom in Scythia\u003cbr\u003ethey could feel the bridge shaking under their voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe bank and the first spans are soon lost to sight\u003cbr\u003ethere seemed no end to the horses carts people and all their voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ein the mists at dusk the whole bridge sank under them\u003cbr\u003einto the meres and marshes leaving nothing but their voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethey are still speaking the language of their last kingdom\u003cbr\u003ethat no one remembers who now hears their voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewhatever translates from those rags of sound\u003cbr\u003epersuades some who hear them that they are familiar voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003egrandparents never seen ancestors in their childhoods\u003cbr\u003enow along the present bridge they sound like dear voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003esome may have spoken in my own name in an earlier language\u003cbr\u003ewhen last they drew breath in the kingdom of their voices","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44864970752229,"sku":"NP9780375704352","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375704352.jpg?v=1767741257","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-river-sound-isbn-9780375704352","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}