THE MUSICALITY OF MERRILL: Perhaps a Preface To a Masters Presentation In Poetry. in January 1994's American Spectator magazine Christopher Cahill quotes Harold Bloom calling James Merrill the "Mozart of American Poetry." But he doesn't go on to discuss why. Here I will try. Cahill touches on Merrill's love of language, his operatic tone and his dramatic use of rhyme and meter. Many biographers mention his love of opera since age eleven, his technical skill on piano, and some of the famous poets and musicians (ie: artists) he knew, befriended and/or slept with. No one seems ready to further discuss how his musicality influenced his poetry and especially how his poetry influenced his musicality. Well,here I go. I will try tackling the former because the latter won't fit less than five pages. I therefore beg a sequel, trilogy or underwritten grant someday to begin a life's work interviewing the piano he played which was moved to his mother's house after his death.
If you're wondering what year Merrill was born you won't see that here. If you want to know more about his sexuality ask someone struggling with that. If you simply want to know what made him tick, I'll give it away early -- an old wooden metronome. When James Merrill died I'd never heard of him. Reading the New York Times obituary say how major he was, I became a bit uneasy. Here I majored in English Lit at UConn, and was oblivious to a major contemporary poet who died about 45 minute's bicycle ride from my boyhood home in Southeastern Connecticut. Perhaps embarrassed is a better word. but then I didn't even know who Stephen Vincent Benet was either. And "come to find out," (I like to quote Will Rogers as often as I can) Benet's buried two or three stones away from Merrill's little wooden cross made out of what I think was an old oar. (Elpinore?) Between them lies John Mason Brown's body too. James Merrill was "eleven living with his mother in NYC after his parents' divorce, when he discovered opera 'and the sense of a feeling that could be expressed without any particular attention to words.' This love of music was to serve as an occasional stimulus for composition and is evident in the carefully orchestrated rhythms present in all his poems." "Whenever I reach an impass, working on a poem," Merrill told an interviewer for Contemporary Literature in 1968, "I try to imagine an analogy with musical form; it usually helps." I devoured many books and magazines before uncovering that quote in August 1981 Current Biography magazine. It practically stands alone in pointing out how Merrill brought musicality over to poetry. Maybe no one wanted to say the same thing again. I'll never know. "I cared about music long before I cared about literature," Merrill has said. No wonder as an old man he could relate to Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin AND Louis "Satchel Mouth" Armstrong. They were all part of that muse that made him vibrate. Along with his ouija board of course, but I will NOT go there. Come to Merrill's world before rock and roll even existed. "We lit a fire and sat on the floor with sherry, while the ravishing "Spring" sonata, interrupted every four minutes by having to change the record, burgeoned around us. (Merrill:A Different Person. pg 48) merrill says his "Opera going self" was born in the music room when he was a child. Imagine him sitting at one of two grand pianos taking lessons from a world famous opera singer. these lessons and his family's frequent trips to the old Met are where he claims his real education was had. So that's a little of why his poems would come out so lyrical. Now I'll finish this paper showing you some examples of how. "The Pier: Under Pisces" is full of off rhyme, all the biographers and critics got that. (Merrill: Late Settings. pg 14) But no one mentions how dance-like they are. for that matter, how dance-like the whole poem is. Try counting 1,2,3;1,2,3... in your head while you read this. (I'll splice 3 stanzas together) you're watching a waltz. Ceramic - lipped in filmy Peekaboo blouses, Flourescent body Stockings, hot stripes, Swayed by the hypnotic ebb and flow Of supermarket muzak, Bolero beat the undertow's Pebble-filled gourds repeat; The shallows, brighter, Wetter than water, Tepidly glitter with the fingerprint- Obliterating feel kerosene. not everything Merrill published held to four line forms. Terza Rhyma was one of his favorites, but you'll find everything in his books. He moves from form to form the way Mozart used to modulate from key to key with seeming ease and poise. Sometimes in the middle of rigid form he'll go to a funny "lead solo" like: U Cn gt a gd jb w hi pa! So thinks a sign in the subway. Don't assume that's completely freeform though, as spontaneous as it looks. Set a metronome going or tap your pen while you read that out loud. Click, click, click. There's definitely an "...ameter" going on here. Should I chance the first three lines of "SELF-PORTRAIT IN TYVEK (TM) WINDBREAKER?" If you get it I'm afraid you might not be able to get it out of your head: even by singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm really loud... The windbreaker is white with a world map. Dupont contributed the seeming frail, Unrippable stuff first used for priority mail. This is a duel scene. Fencing. Perries, thrusts, fakes to the left. Another thrust. I wish I could've attended one of his performances. It's written many times that he was enjoyable to hear. I'll bet it's his sense of music. Watch him dance with Heather White who interviewed him for the Winter '95-'96 Ploughshares. WHITE: If we could turn to more general poetics, can you account for the emotional affect of words ordered in a particular way on a page? (fakesright) MERRILL: A very hard question. Let me just say: No, I can't. Or: I know it when I see it. (swing your partner, bow to the left) WHITE: Is there some essential distinction between poetic language and other kinds of language? (she thrusts) MERRILL: That is the same question I just dodged so gracefully. I'd go onto say that context is everything in these matters. The proportions, theturn of mind. I've seen some shopping lists and lists of checks written ina poem that charmed me. (by Madison Morrison) What makes the difference is the writer's sense of form and style. In "The Victor Dog" he compares Bix, Buxtehude, Boulez, Bloch, Bach and acid rock all in one poem. A musicology lesson in ten stanzas. Here's one: From judgement, it would seem, he has refrained. He even listens earnestly to Bloch, Then builds a church upon our acid rock, He's man's - no - he's the Leiermann's best friend. So rhyme and meter were Merrill's most profound means. If you ask me really fun, moving poetry was his end. I'm an English major considering minoring in music. I've long wished to do graduate work in ethnomusicology. I think rather than steal tribal sacred songs from around the world, I might like to try making my thesis an expounding upon this very paper.
Books and Magazines I Conversed With: A DIFFERENT PERSON: A Memoir. James Merrill. 1993 THE INNER ROOM: Poems by James Merrill. James Merrill. 1988 INFERNO. Dante Alighierri. Edited by James Merrill. 1994 LATE SETTINGS: Poems. James Merrill. 1985 SELECTED POEMS 1946-1985. James Merrill. 1992 Book Review. American Spectator. Jan '94 "Merrill's Last Act." New Leader. Jun 5, '95 "South Hadley Diarist." New Republic. Mar 6, '95 "Poetry: James Merrill, 1926-1995. Newsweek. Feb 20, '95 "Interview with James Merrill." Ploughshares. Winter '95-'96 Obituary. Time Magazine. Feb 20, '95 "Exploring The Changing Light at Sandover: An Interview with James Merrill. Twentieth Century Literature. Winter '92. Sorry I didn't hold to APA or MLA or anything. I'm doing battle of sorts with the Madame Turabians of the world. Began with a vendetta towards Roberts Parliamentary Order Rules. I'm hoping it will end with mass creativity unleashed. (tic) (this thesis dedicated to all of you)
