A Different Person: A Memoir

When I first expressed interest to my adviser in pursuing work on Merrill, she leaned back slightly, admitting that she had known him, commenting on the sadness of his death, and how beautiful a person he was. With each page of this memoir I discovered anew how much force such a simple statement, such as could be made about many a friend or relative, could have between the anonymous reader and master poet. Perhaps the greatest credit to this fascinating narrative skimming back and forth across oceans of memory, time and water lies in the constant delight of coming across the title phrased within the work. Never overstated, the phrase reverberates effortlessly as JM, (for those who love The Changing Light at Sandover - and this work is, though more than worthy in its own right, ultimately intended and most valuable for those who have read or wish to read Sandover) translates his non-egotistical love of the experience and metamorphosis of the self into a selflessly shared region for his reader to explore, guided by the gentlest of hands. "A Different Person" dispenses with a distinction from his poetry. Indeed, I found myself supplying the lines with hidden rhymes, Merrill's voice and its shifting tones of surprise, glee, facility followed by grave discovery, so on. But perhaps unique to our experience is the sense that at a remove from poetic form, the metaphors, images and dramatis personae behave at once with the force we permit in poetry (and tend to ignore as flourishes when reading a biography), and the weight of that which irrevocably occured and influenced a man's life, about which we care deeply. We cannot help but be reminded that we are in a sense writing ourselves, hoping that the nuances of our self-reflection can make good of our experience, as Merrill does of his life, which like the lightening flashes of Oujia inspiration, "dwells all along in a manner of speaking." Additionally, for those interested in either critical analysis of Merrill's work or simply improving their familiarity with his oeuvre, "A Different Person" offers numerous insights into Merrill's poetics, as in his hope, expressed towards the end of the memoir, for the "perpetual freshening of human language" through slang, dance or Astrophysics. Nor should it go without mention that Merrill's numerous acquantainces, flings, soirees and hesitant appraisals of this whole world delight throughout. And the prose (if it can be so called) is of course masterful - fluid and deep.Only fittingly - Ad plures ire, JM