James Merrill, Tradition, and Resistance: A Meditation Around Three Poems

Abstract

While considering three poems by James Merrill, I reflect on the relationship between prosodic tradition and innovation, and the degree to which that relationship can be a way to consider, as well, interiority and public presentation, privilege and the lack of it. This is also a way for me to reflect on influence, assumed and actual, and in particular to sort out my uneasy relationship to a poet whose work has been said to be influential on my own. To what degree is technique a way of deflecting intimacy? Can prosody in fact enact intimacy? These are among the questions that arise from my readings of the poems, questions meant to be left resonating, not to be answered.