Merrill, James (James Ingram Merrill), 1926–95, American poet, b. New York City. Born into wealth, he studied at Amherst College (grad. 1947) and was free to live as he pleased and to devote much of his time to poetry. One of the most admired poets of his generation, he is noted for the technical virtuosity, elegant formality, refined lyricism, and witty urbanity of verse that, while always reserved, became more autobiographical, intimate, and colloquial over the years. His early volumes include First Poems (1951), Water Street (1962), Nights and Days (1966), The Fire Screen (1969), and Braving the Elements (1972). His most ambitious work was published in three parts (1976–80) and released in its entirety as The Changing Light at Sandover (1982). In it, Merrill (with his companion David Jackson) used a Ouija board to invoke the spirits (and the spirit) of his aesthetic forebears. Among later volumes are Late Settings (1985), The Inner Room (1988), and A Scattering of Salts (1995). His lyrics are gathered in the volume James Merrill: Collected Poems (2001). Merrill won every major literary award for poetry, including the Pulitzer and Bollingen prizes and two National Book Awards. He also wrote plays, e.g., The Immortal Husband (1955); novels, e.g., The Seraglio (1957); and essays, e.g., Recitative (1986).

Bibliography

See his memoir, A Different Person (1993); his Collected Novels and Plays (2002) and Collected Prose (2004), ed. by J. D. McClatchy and S. Yenser; R. Labrie, James Merrill (1982), J. Moffett, James Merrill: An Introduction (1984), S. Yenser, The Consuming Myth: The Work of James Merrill (1986); M. Blasing, Politics and Form in Postmodern Poetry: O'Hara, Bishop, Ashbery, and Merrill (1995); A. Lurie, Familiar Spirits: A Memoir of James Merrill and David Jackson (2001).

Merrill, James (Ingram)

(born March 3, 1926, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Feb. 6, 1995, Tucson, Ariz.) U.S. poet. Son of a founder of the investment firm Merrill Lynch, he attended Amherst College. Inherited wealth enabled him to devote his life to poetry. His lyric and epic poems are known for their fine craftsmanship, erudition, and wit. Many of his later works were stimulated by sessions with a Ouija board. His collections include Nights and Days (1966), the trilogy of Divine Comedies (1976, Pulitzer Prize), Mirabell: Books of Number (1978), and Scripts for the Pageant (1980), published together in The Changing Light at Sandover (1982). A Different Person, his memoir, was published in 1993. His last book of poetry, A Scattering of Salts, was published posthumously in 1995.

Merrill, James (Ingram) (1926– ) poet, writer; born in New York City. Son of the wealthy stockbroker Charles Merrill, he studied at Amherst (B.A. 1947). He lived abroad—in Greece and elsewhere—for many years, but maintained a home in Stonington, Conn. He wrote plays and novels, but is best known for his elegant, elliptical poetry as in The Changing Light at Sandover (1982), which also revealed his involvement with the occult.