Looking at Mummy

Looking at Mummy

Merrill poem as transcribed by his mother. McClatchy published a facsimile of the poem in his article "The Inner Room," Raritan (Summer 1999), 19.1: 1-22. He wrote that "Because he was a devoted mother's only child or because he was the pampered son of a wealthy man, every scrap of his childhood seems to have been preserved--drawings, report cards, letters, and cards. And among all this I found a little verse, copied out in his mother's hand, and dated 29 October 1932. Its author was six years old" (12). © Literary Estate of James Merrill at Washington University Libraries.

James Merrill

October 29, 1932