Prize-winning poet W.S. Merwin reads Thursday night at Town Hall to benefit the nonprofit Copper Canyon Press, one of the region’s premier literary publishing houses. Merwin’s newest collection, The Shadow of Sirius, won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize — his second Pulitzer. Come hear how the lines of one of America's finest poets, writing at the peak of his craft, stream like unstoppable currents that pull us into a speaking intimacy: the worn griefs will have eased like the early cloud / through which the morning slowly comes to itself / and the ancient defenses against the dead / will be done with and left to the dead at last / the light will be as it is now in the garden / that we have made here these years together / of our long evenings and astonishment. In honor of Merwin, Copper Canyon poets Erin Belieu, Ben Lerner, Valzhyna Mort, and Matthew Zapruder will also read.

Thursday, Feb. 4, 7 pm, Town Hall, 1119 8th Ave.. $15 general / $10 students. Advance tickets: 800/838-3006.