In Celebration of James Merrill

The Art of Poetry No. 31

The Paris Review Redux: free interviews, stories, poems, and art from the archives of The Paris Review. View this email in your browser James Merrill, courtesy of the Rollie McKenna Collection. "I could never see beyond the poem I was at work on," James Merrill said to J. D. McClatchy in his Art of Poetry interview, which was published in issue no. 84 of the Review. "And since weeks or months could go by between poems, I tried to make each one 'last' as long as possible, to let its meanings ever so slowly rise to the surface I peered into—enchanted and a touch bored. I looked forward, not without apprehension, to a lifetime of this." In celebration of James Merrill, who was born on this day in 1926, we've unlocked his Art of Poetry interview from our archive.  INTERVIEW The Art of Poetry No. 31 James Merrill INTERVIEWER When you read someone else's poem, what do you read for? What kind of pleasure do you take? What kind of hesitations do you have? MERRILL Well, I'm always open to what another poet might do with the line, or with a stanza. I don't know what particular turn of phrase I look for, but it's always very important, the phrasing of the lines—Elizabeth's elegy for Lowell struck me as such a masterpiece because you read the poem a couple of times and felt you knew it by heart. Every line fell in the most wonderful way. From issue no. 84 (Summer 1982) To read more from issue no. 84, including fiction by Norman Rush, why not subscribe? You'll receive four print issues a year plus unlimited digital access to our seventy-year archive. Copyright © 2024 The Paris Review. All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Our mailing address is: The Paris Review 544 West 27th Street 3rd Floor New York, New York 10001 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe, if you must.