Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm terrifically honored to have with me in the studio, W.S. Merwin, William Merwin,

whose collected new and selected poems, migration, was recently the winner of the National Book Award.

We'll be talking about his newest book of poetry, present company. These two books have both

been published by Copper Canyon Press, the beautiful press in the Pacific Northwest,

and as well as the most recent volume of his memories

called Summer Doorways,

which was published by Shoemaker and Horde,

another remarkable press up north.

Now, I wanted these poems have a uniformity of intention.

They're all odes.

And I wondered what circumstance led to a whole book of odes.

It came out of one poem, which is in there.

There's a poem called To the Unlakely Event.

And I read it recently at the university, and I asked anybody if that sounded familiar, and it didn't sound familiar to anybody.

Does it sound familiar to you, Michael?

In the unlikely event. To the unlikely event. Yes, but what I thought of when I read it was those announcements on airplanes. Exactly. That's what it is. That's what it is from in the unlikely event of a

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