James Merrill's Poetry Manuscripts

Items

• Merrill at Piano
• Merrill Music Room
• Merrill Nights and Days
• The Black Swan
  The Black Swan, Kimon Friar's privately printed book of James Merrill's college poetry, probably at least partially financed by Merrill, himself. This copy inscribed to "Jonnie."
• Program for "The Artists Theater," including "The Bait"
  Program for "The Artists Theater," including "The Bait," a one-act play in which James Merrill incorporates psychoanalysis. Merrill first met David Jackson after a performance.
• Tony Parigory and James Merrill
  Tony Parigory and James Merrill. "Tall, smiling, Alexandrian Tony...In his worldly wisdom, off-color jokes, and macaronic bons mots...he resembled none of Merrill's friends so much as Ephraim, the Familiar Spirit."
• Maria Mitsotaki and James Merrill
  Maria Mitsotaki and James Merrill. Merrill's face is bound as a result of Bell's Palsy, an episode recounted in "The Thousand and Second Night" (see also the manuscript pages for that poem). "[Maria] was pert, pretty, small and sweet...and able to choose her friends. [Jimmy] adopted her as a mock mother, making himself small in her presence, as if he were her boy, her puppet."
• "Tony: Ending the Life"
  "Tony: Ending the Life," published in A Scattering of Salts, is an "expansive elegy for his friend" (Tony Parigory, who died in summer 1993 of AIDS), "and (it is all but explicit) himself." Merrill had been largely silent about his AIDS diagnosis but it came out in his poetry. Included here are three of a total 61 manuscript pages.
• Journal 58 - Letter to Tony Harwood
  Draft of a letter to Tony Harwood about Merrill's beliefs on soul and spirituality. These would feed into "The Broken Home," "From the Cupola," and "Days of 1964."
• Journal 1 - Kimon Friar
  Journal entry in which Merrill recounts his mother's discovery of his love affair with Kimon Friar.
• 11 Verso) Page from Merrill's "A Class Day Talk" (1968).
• 6 Verso) Page from Merrill's "Prose of Departure."
• 5 Verso) Page from Merrill's "Prose of Departure."
• 4 Verso) Page from Merrill's A Different Person (1993).
• 1 Verso) Page from Merrill's "Prose of Departure." Additions in pencil.
• Sketch of Orphée
• 3) IN AMAZEMENT. Two revisions in pencil.
• 2) IN AMAZEMENT.
• 1 Verso) IN AMAZEMENT. Text crossed out.
• Merrill in Cocteau's Orphée 1945
  Merrill playing title role in Cocteau's Orphée 1945 and Amherst College