Writer's Almanac Worth Listening To

This morning, as I was running some errands, I turned on Wisconsin Public Radio in the car. It just so happened that Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac was the first thing I heard. His voice has a velvety quality that is very wise and calming, much like the voice of my late Uncle Charlie.
On the program the poetry of W.S. Merwin was featured. Here is part of the transcript of today's program:

It's the birthday of W.S. Merwin, born in New York City (1927). He was the son of a Presbyterian minister. He began writing his first poems when he was four or five years old. He majored in English at Princeton, then stuck around for an extra year as a graduate student studying Modern Romance languages. Then he left to travel around Europe, and he got a job for the BBC, translating classics from French or Spanish. He has translated poetry for most of his career, including works by Pablo Neruda and Dante. His first book of poetry, A Mask for Janus, came out in 1952.
Merwin lived in England and New York, and then he settled in Hawaii. He lives in Maui with his current wife, Paula, whom he married in a Buddhist ceremony 25 years ago. They live in a small house on the lip of a dormant volcano, where Merwin spends much of his days cultivating rare and endangered palm trees.

He wrote about his wife and his home in Hawaii:

I lie listening to the black hour before dawn

and you are still asleep beside me while

around us the trees full of night lean

hushed in their dream that

bears us up asleep and awake

then I hear drops falling one by one into the sightless leaves.

W.S. Merwin has never made a living in academia teaching poetry. Instead, he lives on $25,000 to $30,000 a year, earning money by doing occasional readings of his poetry, and living off prize money now and then.

You will learn about fascinating characters like Merwin and many others if you listen to Writer's Almanac on Wisconsin Public Radio at 8:50 weekday mornings. For a two-minute program, it is a great investment of your time. Charlie, I'm beginning to more fully appreciate why you liked Wisconsin Public Radio so much.

Here is a poem by John Updike that was heard in 1999 on The Writer's Almanac:

Perfection Wasted

And another regrettable thing about death is the ceasing of your own brand of magic, which took a whole life to develop and market -- the quips, the witticisms, the slant adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears, their tears confused with their diamond earrings, their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat, their response and your performance twinned. The jokes over the phone. The memories packed in the rapid-access file. The whole act. Who will do it again? That's it: no one; imitators and descendants aren't the same.

(This poem took on more meaning after my uncle passed away. )