Merrill, James 1926–

Merrill is a gifted "neometaphysical" poet, a playwright, and novelist. He has won several important awards, including the National Book Award for Poetry in 1967. Critics agree that his particular language, the "elusive prose structure that he works against the verse structure of the poem," is his most distinguished poetic achievement. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 13-16, rev. ed.)

With almost masochistic glee Paul Valéry lamented the poet's lack of a musician's precision tools: "no tuning forks, no metronomes, no inventors of scales or theoreticians of harmony." The poet must "borrow language" from which he creates his own mode of expression. The studious craft of James Merrill's mode is increasingly evident. Within the past two years he has published his most perfectly achieved volume of poems, Braving the Elements, (1972); several subsequent poems which indicate he has entered a mature and sustained...

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