Browse Items (151 total)

A Ouija séance transcript of the recently-deceased Tony Harwood describing the experience of his death.

James Merrill's notes on a possible title for the Ouija trilogy, eventually titled "The Changing Light at Sandover."

Journal 16 captures the visit to the Mayo Clinic during which Merrill was tested for HIV and received the diagnosis of HIV positive. The entry includes haikus, some of which would appear in "Prose of Departure," a 14-part haibun poem.

A draft of a letter to Merrill's mother, Hellen Ingram Plummer, to prepare her for the publication of his memoir,A Different Person, which contained elements of his life he knew would be unsettling to her.

Journal 50 contains Merrill's last poem draft, called "The Next to Last Scene," scribbled down (without his glasses) the day before he died of a heart attack. It was unusual for Merrill to title the first draft of a poem in his notebook.

James Merrill and David Jackson's second séance (and the first that Merrill transcribed and preserved), in which they reached the spirit of "Kabel Barnes," a colonial farmer.

During the March 29 and April 26, 1976 séances, higher powers (over Ephraim) began revealing the cosmology that Merrill would document in Mirabell: Books of Number and Scripts for the Pageant. It was during this time period, after finishing…

During the March 8, 1986 séance James Merrill gets relationship advice from Ephraim concerning Peter Hooten, with mention of the fight that led to Merrill pushing Hooten into the pool.

Published inBraving the Elements,"Days of 1935" was a fantasy narrative about being kidnapped as a boy, à la the "Lindbergh baby," reflecting a real fear the wealthy had after the kidnapping and death of Charles Lindbergh's infant son, in…

Published in Late Settings, "Days of 1941 and '44" recalls Lawrenceville School and Merrill using his diaries to become a "poet of memory." The poem is dedicated to David Mixsell, his arch-nemesis at Lawrenceville, who would die in Europe in World…