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Unread 11-08-2017, 04:36 PM
Aaron Poochigian Aaron Poochigian is offline
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Default James Merrill

I feel as if I should like James Merrill's poetry. I don't. It does absolutely nothing for me. Right now at least, his poems all may as well read "blah, blah, blah. . ." Can anyone point me to something by Merrill that will give me "a way in"?

I mean, the guy won the Pulitzer. I just don't get it.
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Unread 11-08-2017, 04:44 PM
Andrew Szilvasy Andrew Szilvasy is offline
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Lots of mediocre poets have won that, though.

But...I'm with you. I have the Selected edited by J. D. McClatchy,‎ Stephen Yenser, both of whom I respect. I've started it multiple times, and never really get very far into it before I put it aside and pick up something else. I keep trying, though, because I'm supposed to like him.
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Unread 11-08-2017, 05:00 PM
Michael Juster Michael Juster is offline
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A little bit like Auden, I'd skip the early & the late poems (I never cared for the Ouija board stuff). If you don't like the poems he was writing at 40, then you won't like the rest.
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Unread 11-08-2017, 05:02 PM
john savoie john savoie is offline
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Yes, the Ouija board is a bad sign in a lot of ways.
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Unread 11-08-2017, 07:49 PM
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RCL RCL is offline
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Yenser, a former classmate at U Wisconsin and colleague at UCLA has written beautifully about Merrill—and, I must admit, Steve’s prose is more beautiful than M’s poetry!
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Unread 11-08-2017, 08:09 PM
Nicholas F. Nicholas F. is offline
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An audaciously grand, but I think beautiful, poem:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe...ontentId=24646

On the whole, I much prefer Thom Gunn.

Nick

p.s. If Merrill is Baroque, Gunn is Elizabethan. They were both poets out of their time.

Last edited by Nicholas F.; 11-08-2017 at 08:11 PM. Reason: added p.s.
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Unread 11-08-2017, 08:06 PM
Erik Olson Erik Olson is offline
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I, for my part, have very mixed responses to Merrill; I am not familiar with his opus enough to say what the exact reading list would optimally be; but if I had anything to say on this front... I agreed at the very least with this New York Times article's characterization of the poet's less fortunate tendencies.
The poet is an aesthete, a dandy in the Baudelairean sense, unabashedly so. One critic has referred to Merrill’s style as “New Critical Baroque.” Rococo would probably be more apt. Where a straight line would do, Merrill cannot resist using filigree. But if one were to bypass his work, one would be missing some of the finest poems written in English in the middle of last century, poems like “Mornings in a New House,” “Lost in Translation” or “The Kimono,” a poem that shows Merrill at his most restrained...

A hopeless voluptuary when it comes to language, Merrill is addicted to wordplay, cleverness with form, ingenious rhymes… One can languish amid the poet’s digressions. Merrill’s gifts with language often become his vice. His poetry, when read in quantity, even in this expertly edited selection by J. D. McClatchy and Stephen Yenser, can at times seem like a repast of macaroons and tawny port. He is best read a poem or two at a time…[emphasis my own]
Anyway, I think The Green Eye, or Periwinkles, or The Locusts might be good to read; for one thing, they introduce and prefigure the way in which the poet sees. I read he was a brilliant reader of poetry; here you can hear him read his poem Kimono. He wrote The Victor Dog, an exercise in virtuosity and wit, to Elizabeth Bishop.
Best,
Erik

Last edited by Erik Olson; 11-08-2017 at 08:58 PM.
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Unread 11-08-2017, 10:15 PM
Aaron Poochigian Aaron Poochigian is offline
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Thanks, Sam. Let's put some Merrill poems up. Here's "Charles on Fire":

Charles on Fire

Another evening we sprawled about discussing
Appearances. And it was the consensus
That while uncommon physical good looks
Continued to launch one, as before, in life
(Among its vaporous eddies and false claims),
Still, as one of us said into his beard,
"Without your intellectual and spiritual
Values, man, you are sunk." No one but squared
The shoulders of their own unloveliness.
Long-suffering Charles, having cooked and served the meal,
Now brought out little tumblers finely etched
He filled with amber liquor and then passed.
"Say," said the same young man, "in Paris, France,
They do it this way"--bounding to his feet
And touching a lit match to our host's full glass.
A blue flame, gentle, beautiful, came, went
Above the surface. In a hush that fell
We heard the vessel crack. The contents drained
As who should step down from a crystal coach.
Steward of spirits, Charles's glistening hand
All at once gloved itself in eeriness.
The moment passed. He made two quick sweeps and
Was flesh again. "It couldn't matter less,"
He said, but with a shocked, unconscious glance
Into the mirror. Finding nothing changed,
He filled a fresh glass and sank down among us.
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Unread 11-09-2017, 01:08 AM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Which seems to support Sam's point. Here's another, chosen pretty much at random from the Collected:

The "Metro"

One level below street, an airless tank -
We'd go there, evenings, watch through glass the world
Eddy by, winking, casting up
Such gorgeous flotsam that hearts leapt, or sank.

Over the bar, in polychrome relief,
A jungle idyll: tiger, waterhole,
Mate lolling on her branch, aperitif-
Green eyes aglare. We also lolled and drank,

Joking with scarface Kosta, destitute
Sotiri, Plato in his new striped suit...
Those tigers are no more now. The bar's gone,
And in its place, O memory! a bank.

P.S. Putting on the Tits is a great show title.

Last edited by John Isbell; 11-09-2017 at 01:17 AM.
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Unread 11-09-2017, 01:35 AM
Gregory Dowling Gregory Dowling is offline
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Aaron, we had a great critical seminar on Merrill a few years back at West Chester and some of the papers were later published in Contemporary Poetry Review. Here's a link to my introduction to the various essays (each one dealing with a single poem):

http://www.cprw.com/james-merrill-sp...n-introduction

If you want me to point to just one poem, I would suggest "Investiture at Cecconi's", and I would also recommend you read Moira Egan's essay on it.

Another personal favourite, a poem I have frequently taught, is "Lost in Translation". I find students are at first baffled, but intrigued; but after careful study and after taking in some explanatory background material they are usually won over. Merrill is not an easy poet and to a certain extent he requires you to enter his world. Once you do so, it can be very rewarding. I find that poem endlessly fascinating.

I agree that The Changing Light at Sandover is often tedious, not to say daft, but the first section of it (The Book of Ephraim is a masterpiece. Anyway, you can get my take on Merrill as a whole in the article I've linked to above.
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