James Merrill: Selected Poems 1946-1985

by James Merrill

This new Selected Poems replaces an earlier selection of work by James Merrill entitled From the First Nine (1982), now out of print; it includes 121 poems taken from that work and from Late Settings (1985), but it excludes the long narrative poem The Changing Light at Sandover, which is republished simultaneously in a separate volume. Together the two give solid definition to a body of poetic work that must be accounted among the finest in English of our time.
Of James Merrill, the critic Harold Bloom has said, "He is indisputably a verse artist comparable to Milton, Tennyson and Pope. Surely he will be remembered as the Mozart of American poetry, classical rather than mannerist or baroque, master of the changing light or perfection that consoles."

Genres: Poetry

339 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

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

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first page has his best poem, "The Black Swan." After that ... I can barely remember.

[Fan Wu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Merrill gives the ordinary a high baroque, a deeply dandy extravagance. He might be writing about, like, a mercury thermometer going up and down and make it sound sublime, metaphysical, replete with perfect choices of rhythm and sound. It's so gay and a lil anal retentive and completely addictive -- it hardly matters if you lose the plot amidst the unwavering loveliness of his language.

[Andrew H · Rating 3 out of 5]

A volume of wit, irony, and elegance.

[mark mendoza · Rating 3 out of 5]

REEKS of exploited labour on every page.

[Valerielynnbassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this for years and read portions of it. Over this Christmas I pulled it down and read through more of it more intently. I love how with books of poetry in particular you can go back to them year after year and they just sink and land deeper, more resonant. THat was certainly true for this. Some of the poems are just crystalline. A particularly sharp and lucid writer: sometimes poignant, often a bit...emotionally absent. Though when the emotion pokes through the pellucid descriptions, it has a bite and tang.