The Voice of the Poet: James Merrill

The Voice of the Poet

by James Merrill

A remarkable new series of audiobooks, featuring the most distinguished twentieth-century American poets reading from their own work. A first in audiobook publishing--a series that uses the written word to enhance the listening experience--poetry to be read as well as heard. Each audiobook includes rare archival recordings on cassette and a book with the text of the poetry, a bibliography, and a commentary by J.D. McClatchy, the poet and critic, who is the editor of The Yale Review.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Audio Cassette

First published January 1, 1999

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

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my fourth audio from the series, all male poets of the 20th century. The first three disappointed me with the way they read their poetry. I was hoping James Merrill would be different. Not so. Just like the others, he used a deep, guttural voice with pregnant pauses. Is "stentorian" the word to describe it? I kept having a vision of multi-chinned Mitch McConnell pontificating on "what the American people want" when all he is interested in are the dark money providers whose coffers he is filling up. So, et tu James Merrill? When I get to the female poets and they read like this, I'm gonna poop my pants.

[Amy Smith]

I found this at a used bookstore in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood (side note: Ophelia's Books is wonderful). I hadn't read James Merrill before, I didn't know who he was, but something about this small book caught my eye. Maybe it was the strange poem on the back cover about Ft. Lauderdale that eerily captured my experience of that city's vapid kit-boutique strip malls. It turns out the book is a companion to an audio cassette of the author reading his work, which I wish I could track down. Elegant and rich poetry, I feel I've only scratched the surface of Merrill's work.