Browse Items (15 total)

A poem draft with examples of wordplay, an important exercise for James Merrill throughout his writing life. This entry also contains notes on Ephraim and Cold War nuclear annihilation worries.

A Ouija séance transcript regarding Wallace Stevens in the afterlife. This serves as one example of Merrill and Jackson frequently communicating with recently-deceased writers and friends, and also of the topics of literary vocation and sexual…

Journal 59 includes numerous pages of early holograph notes and drafts toward "The Broken Home," one of which is included here. Merrill's most autobiographical poem to date, "The Broken Home" centered on his parents' troubled relationship. It was…

Journal entry in which Merrill recounts his mother's discovery of his love affair with Kimon Friar.

Merrill's first diary, including an entry in which he recounts how he cleverly got out of being de-pantsed by David Mixsell at Lawrenceville School. One of Merrill's drawings is laid in beside the entry.