1979

Mirabell: Books of Number

By James Merrill

Original and Current Publisher: Atheneum

James Merrill first won the National Book Award in Poetry in 1967 for Nights and Days.

An appreciation of Merrill’s work may be found here. >

Poetry Finalists that Year:

• Robert Hayden for American Journal
• Sandra McPherson for The Year of Our Birth
• Philip Schultz for Like Wings
• May Swenson for New & Selected Things Taking Place

Poetry Judges that Year: Elizabeth Bishop, Michael S. Harper, Anthony Hecht

The Year in Literature: Now and Then by Robert Penn Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.         

Other Information:

• James Merrill (1926-1995) was born in New York, NY.
• Merrill’s father, Charles E. Merrill, was the founding partner of the Merrill Lynch investment firm.

Suggested Links:

• James Merrill profile at Poets.org
• Merrill's Papers at Washington University in St. Louis
• James Ingram Merrill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
• AUDIO: Merrill's Lost in Translation

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