Thinking about going green?

Tonight, the UA Poetry Center will host poet and environmentalist William Stanley Merwin as he gives a talk, “”Poetry in the Green World,””which will incorporate Merwin’s observations and ideas from a lifetime immersed in poetry and the natural world,”” wrote Annie Guthrie, assistant marketing specialist at the UA Poetry Center, in an e-mail. ÿ

W.S. Merwin has become one of the most influential American poets of the 20th century. A 1948 graduate of Princeton, his love of languages as a young man inspired him to be a literary translator of French, Spanish and Latin poems, but he was first recognized as an anti-war poet in the 1960s. In the 1980s and ’90s Merwin’s style of poetry and prose began to change as he became attracted to “”deep ecology,”” the idea that, like humanity, the living environment has the right to live and flourish.

Merwin is the author of over 20 volumes of poetry and is responsible for over twenty translations, most famously “”Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.”” He has received many awards, some of which include the Pulitzer Prize, the Tanning Prize, the Bollingen Prize and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. “”The talk will include readings of poetry (his own and others) and will discuss the inherent connection among human beings, animals and wilderness,”” Guthrie wrote.

His last book of prose, “”The Book of Fables,”” was published in 2007 and was praised by The Atlantic Monthly as, “”Metaphors, puns, surrealist visions, converted into sharp, disturbing little narratives … only a poet, and a good one, could have written it.””

Merwin’s environmental beliefs are evident in his active restoration of the rainforests in Hawaii. Even after five decades of writing, he continues to write and translate on the island of Maui where he has lived since the 1970s.

“”Merwin’s poetry is accessible and his message is urgent. The event will be inspiring for anyone who attends – the poet helps us understand the world and encourages us to be a part of the struggle to protect the natural world from the forces that endanger it,”” Guthrie wrote.

The event begins at 8 p.m. at the UA Poetry Center, 1508 E. Helen St. The event is free and is open to the public.