Merrill: Poems: Edited by Langdon Hammer

by James Merrill, Langdon Hammer (Editor)

A beautiful hardcover selection of poems by one of the giants of contemporary American poetry. EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY POCKET POETS.

James Merrill once called his body of work "chronicles of love and loss," and in twenty books written over four decades he used the details of his own life--comic and haunting, exotic and domestic--to shape a portrait that in turn mirrored the image of our world and our moment. Like Wallace Stevens and W. H. Auden before him, Merrill sought to quicken the pulse of a poem in surprising and compelling ways--ways, indeed, that changed how we came to see our own lives. Years ago, the critic Helen Vendler wrote of Merrill, "He has become one of our indispensable poets." This volume brings together an entirely new pocket-sized selection of the best of Merrill's work. His poetry dazzles at every turn, and this balanced and compact selection will be an ideal introduction to the work for both students and general readers, and an instant favorite among his familiars.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

256 pages, Hardcover

Published March 7, 2017

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Shawn Thrasher]

The "star system" is ludicrous. I'm not going to give stars to a book of poetry. I respect and admire James Merrill for becoming and being and living as a poet. For throwing himself out there again and again in his poetry, letting us see his secret dark places (and his fun places and light places and interesting places). Quick thoughts: I didn't understand most of these poems, but I didn't really care because they were so elegantly written. He is sexy as hell. His poetry is difficult as f++k. His poems are full of allusions (maybe even some illusions), and quotations from other poets that I'd never heard of, and inferences and connotations, and probably innuendo that went way over my head, and suggestions and intimations. The poems are not pleasant or pleasing, but they feel real (and deep, like whale song at the bottom of the ocean kind of deep, unfathomable but still f++king cool). I know next to nothing about literary criticism, and I can't speak knowledgeably or intelligently about poetry. So I feel uncomfortable stating anything much beyond what I've said above; plus: I was moved, and moved to think deeply, on several occasions. I've been trying to challenge myself poetry-wise (I read a whole bunch of Gertrude Stein recently as well, which is like deeper whale songs from the deeper sea). James Merrill was a satisfying challenge.

I have only one beef, and it's about the book itself. The entire reason I read a collection of James Merrill's poems in the first place was because he wrote poem called "Christmas Tree" that I saw online and I LOVED IT because it was shaped like a Christmas tree (here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poet...) - and this stupid book didn't format the poem into the shape of a tree. What the hell? That's the whole point of the poem, stupid book editors! For that, this BOOK deserves 1 star (it was one of the last poems in the book too, and I would have probably found another collection if it had been first).

[Elisabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5
This is a difficult book to rate because while the poems were interesting, I don't think they were necessarily the type of poetry I like. There's only a very small amount of pieces in this collection that I consider rereading because I liked them as poems, but I do think this collection might be interesting to people wanting to get a better read on Merrill.