James Merrill
James Ingram Merrill was born on March 3, 1926, and died on February 6, 1995. From the mid-1950s on, he lived in Stonington, Connecticut, and for extended periods he also had houses in Athens and Key West. From The Black Swan (1946) through A Scattering of Salts (1995), he wrote twelve books of poems, ten of them published in trade editions, as well as The Changing Light at Sandover (1982). He also published two plays, The Immortal Husband (1956) and The Bait (1960); two novels, The Seraglio (1957, reissued in 1987) and The (Diblos) Notebook (1965, reissued 1994); a book of essays, interviews, and reviews, Recitative (1986); and a memoir, A Different Person (1993). Over the years, he was the winner of numerous awards for his poetry, including two National Book Awards, the Bollingen Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and the first Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress. He was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
“Beneath my incredulity All at once is flowingJoy, the flash of the unbaited hook --Yes, yes, it fits, it's right, it had to be!Intuition weightless and ongoing Like stanzas in a bookOr golden scales in the melodic brook --”
“The day is breaking someone else's heart.”
“Lost, is it, buried? One more missing piece?But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translationAnd every bit of us is lost in it(Or found — I wander through the ruin of SNow and then, wondering at the peacefulness)And in that loss a self-effacing tree,Color of context, imperceptiblyRustling with its angel, turns the wasteTo shade and fiber, milk and memory.”
“The eggshell of appearance split.”
“Nor do I try to keep a garden, onlyAn avocado in a glass of water --Roots pallid, gemmed with air. And later,When the small gilt leaves have grownFleshy and green, I let them die, yes, yes,And start another. I am earth's no less.”