Merwin no friend of good poetry? If good poetry in your book needs to be metrical and rhyme, then there's no point in taking up the gauntlet you threw down. But if good poetry needn't be metrical, then I think it's absurd to be dismissive of Merwin. He's written so much that it wouldn't be hard to find some examples of bad poems he has written, but if you can't find Merwin poems you admire I suspect you don't like poetry all that much. Just my opinion, which I share with many lovers of poetry.
I don't know if Merwin actually translates from 60 different languages. I am competent to judge his Spanish translations, and I find them to be among the best there are both in terms of the end result and fidelity to the original. You won't find Merwin adding images or substantive words that are not expressly in the original, a virtue that most translators of Spanish poetry do not share.
I don't believe Merwin is competent in any Asian tongues, yet his "Asian Figures" are thoroughly engaging and quite wonderful, and Merwin in fact "discovered" these poems because some of them weren't even meant to be poems in the original.
Odd that I've become the Merwin booster here, since he is certainly not a favorite of mine or particularly near to my heart. But the need to respect him and his accomplishment to me seems hugely obvious.
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