James Merrill’s audacious and dazzling epic poem, The Changing Light at Sandover, remains as startling today as when it first emerged ...
read full description
reviews
Feb 09, 2011
"frontier austerities..."
from Mirabell:
How should you speak? Speak without metaphor.
Help me to drown the double-entry book
I've kept these fifty years. You want from me
Science at last, instead of tapestry--
Then tell round what brass tacks the old silk frays.
-1.6
As every unloved child would like to think,
We're after all these grown-ups' only link
With life. And they ours--whose post-mortems keep
Us from if not the devil More...
from Mirabell:
How should you speak? Speak without metaphor.
Help me to drown the double-entry book
I've kept these fifty years. You want from me
Science at last, instead of tapestry--
Then tell round what brass tacks the old silk frays.
-1.6
As every unloved child would like to think,
We're after all these grown-ups' only link
With life. And they ours--whose post-mortems keep
Us from if not the devil More...
Aug 24, 2007
Richard Kenney suggested that I might get a kick out of this book, given my penchant for writing tarot card sonnets.
*****
"The Changing Light at Sandover" is a 560-page epic poem, which was published in three separate installments between 1976 and 1980, and in its entirety in 1982.
With his partner David Jackson, Merrill spent more than 20 years transcribing supernatural communications during séances using a ouija board. Already established in the 1970 More...
*****
"The Changing Light at Sandover" is a 560-page epic poem, which was published in three separate installments between 1976 and 1980, and in its entirety in 1982.
With his partner David Jackson, Merrill spent more than 20 years transcribing supernatural communications during séances using a ouija board. Already established in the 1970 More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Mar 08, 2009
Oh wait, poetry too. Merrill can be mediocre but I've dipped into (and will never finish) this book many times and enjoy its strangeness (+ great title). Merrill with an Ouija board, takes dictation. Can't get over all the CAPS LOCK responses from the spirit world!
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Oct 28, 2010
Alex
rated it: 
have only read "The Book of Ephraim" as a photocopied handout, but that was well nigh incredible. will have to get the full book (and The Divine Comedies) and read the rest.
Aug 22, 2009
Daniel
rated it:
REMEMBER THIS IS NON-FICTION
The transcripts from the Ouija sessions are in special collections at Washington University in Saint Louis
The transcripts from the Ouija sessions are in special collections at Washington University in Saint Louis
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Oct 20, 2007
Meghan
rated it: 
Admittedly, Merrill is not for everyone. His poetry is dense, cyclical, scientific, and at times deliberately aloof. Yet, this post-modern epic poem deserves to be placed alongside T.S. Elliot's "The Wasteland" as one of the great long poems of the 20th century. A poem in the form of a Ouija board, a horde of deceased characters being channeled through Merrill's partnership with his lover, and fittingly dense ruminations on metaphysical concepts makes this daunting poem worth the re
More...
Jan 03, 2008
Donald
rated it:
James Merrill is one of the best poets of the late 20th century. He moved to a small town on the Maine coast and began to use the ouija board in his parlor overlooking the sea, spurred on by his boyfriend. The hobby soon became an obsession and this is the epic result-a book, supposedly dictated by disembodied spirits. Merrills sense of structure and poetic imagery hold it all together, as their personal world disintegrates...lost in the eythers.
Jul 23, 2008
Luca
rated it: 
I slammed into a wall in the middle of this, and kind of gave up on it. I get more out of Merrill's shorter work, without the sci-fi aspects of The Changing Light. Not that I'm particularly qualified to evaluate this magnum opus.
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Apr 15, 2010
An epic poem about a long term gay couple and the spirits of the dead they speak to with a Ouija board. I've finished the first Book. Fascinating. Very dense (it is Poetry). I'll probably reread the first section before continuing.
Apr 07, 2010
Eric
rated it:
So many voluminous verse cosmologies, so little time. I've read the first section, 'The Book of Ephraim'; but have no such foothold in The Cantos, or in The Divine Comedy.
Dec 03, 2007
Molly
rated it:
if you're looking for a book-length poem, in formal verse, written with the aid of a ouija board...I recommend this one!
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Dec 04, 2010
Aran
rated it:
Oh man it's coming in the mail and I cannot wait to re-read the book of ephraim. eeee!
Feb 10, 2012
Feb 04, 2012
Jan 30, 2012
Jan 26, 2012
Jan 25, 2012
Jan 23, 2012
Jan 21, 2012
Jan 09, 2012
