Esteemed American poet James Merrill wrote thousands of letters in his lifetime, to hundreds of recipients. Joel Minor, Curator of the Modern Literature Collection at Washington University Libraries where the James Merrill Papers reside, moderates a discussion with four panelists about how these letters were aggregated and organized for a book of Merrill’s selected letters (Knopf 2021).

The book’s co-editors, Langdon Hammer, the Niel Gray, Jr. Professor of English at Yale University, and Stephen Yenser, Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA, are joined by Chelsie Malyszek, Visiting Assistant Professor of Rhetoric at Hampden-Sydney College, and Tim Young, Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts at Yale University’s Beinecke Library, both of whom played major roles in these efforts.

Event co-sponsored by the James Merrill House.