Merwin redux

I went to the W.S. Merwin reading at SAL last week. The program started with a 20-minute Q&A conversation between the poetry series curator and the poet on stage. I guess typically the format is reverse - a reading followed by talk. Merwin read for about 30-40 minutes from his new Copper Canyon book. The new collection is split into three sections - I am blanking on what the first and the third were, but section two was a collection of elegies for the poet's dead dogs. I found the lyric poem Lullabye particularly beautiful and hope that someone (i.e. GP) sets it to music (preferably for alto). Merwin talked a little bit before every poem that he read and read at a glacial pace. These were good lessons, to slow it down and to have a conversation with the audience. His new book includes just one translation - a short fragment by Hadrian.