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Spring 1998 • Vol. XX No. 2 • Kenyon Review Classics |

Cloud Country

By James Merrill

From the Summer 1947 Issue. 

 

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In the Summer of 1947, James Merrill had just graduated from Amherst College, but he had already published his first book of poems, The Black Swan, which won the prestigious Glascock Prize for Poetry awarded by Mount Holyoke College. In April, he published four poems in Poetry Magazine, followed quickly by this first appearance in KR.

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The Drowning Poet

By James Merrill

The drowning poet hours before he drownedHad whirlpool eyes, salt at his wrists, and woreA watery emphasis. The sea was awareAs flowers at the bedside of a woundOf an imminent […]

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Entrance from Sleep

By James Merrill

         From the Summer 1947 Issue.To wake into the afternoon for youIs a familiar gesture. Upon the eye,As dawn to the shade-embroidered fountain bringsThe young fern’s wisdom, the first world takes […]

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