Cindy Juyoung Ok Poetry on the Porch https://www.cindyjuyoungok.com/ Cindy Juyoung Ok is the author of Ward Toward and the translator of The Hell of That Star by Kim Hyesoon. A former high school physics teacher, she is a poetry editor and professor. Ok is a Yale Series of Younger Poet, and James Merrill Fellow

Maureen McLane Poetry on the Porch

John Liles in conversation with Willard Spiegelman at the James Merrill House in Stonington, CT.

Virtual Event with 'Pemi Aguda and Gerardo Sámano Córdova

Virtual Reading with Lauren Sandler

Christopher Spaide is a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. His book project, Lyric Togetherness, examines plural pronouns and collective voices of American poetry from 1945 to today. He earned his BA from Amherst College and Master of Studies from Oxford University. His essays, reviews, and poems have appeared in Contemporary Literature, Ploughshares, Poetry, The New Yorker (online), and The Yale Review.

Poet, essayist, and physician Laura Kolbe will read an excerpt from her nonfiction manuscript, blending medical memoir with the history of medicine, poetry, and the arts. She will also read some new poems. After the reading, she'll be joined by palliative-care physician, fiction writer, and essayist Anna DeForest (A History of Present Illness) for a conversation about how their writing practices reinforce -- or strain against -- medical models of observation, attention, and care.

Virtual Reading: Mehdi Tavana Okasi

Merrill House Fellow Reading: Kamran Javadizadeh

Merrill House Fellow: John Cotter

Virtual Reading by James Merrill Fellow, Armen Davoudian

Virtual Reading by James Merrill House fellow, Greg Wrenn

“Reading & Reminiscence.” Stephen Yenser, co-editor of five volumes of James Merrill's work and editor of the annotated Book of Ephraim (2018), and Langdon Hammer, author of the biography James Merrill: Life and Art (2015), read selected letters from A Whole World and reflect on what they reveal about the poet's character and relationships with his correspondents. Willard Spiegelman moderates. Hosted by James Merrill House via Facebook Live and YouTube

James Merrill House Annual Merrill Lecture, Marlon James

Merrill biographer Langdon Hammer, the Niel Gray, Jr. Professor of English at Yale, and Merrill’s friend and literary co-executor Stephen Yenser, Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA, along with Knopf poetry editor Deborah Garrison, discuss telling moments and themes in Merrill’s correspondence. Literary scholar, author, and Merrill House Committee member Willard Spiegelman will introduce the series and participants. Hosted by James Merrill House via Facebook Live and YouTube

Virtual reading by James Merrill House fellow Kirstin Valdez Quade

James Baldwin: A Reading and a Conversation between Nicholas Boggs Co-editor of Baldwin's Little Man, Little Man and James Merrill House Writer-in-Residence and Nicole Terez Dutton Cave Canem Prize-winning Poet and Editor of The Kenyon Review

Walt Hunter is a poet and writer based in Clemson, South Carolina and is at work on an essay about James Merrill and the "American House Poem."

Friday, August 7 at 5pm Join the James Merrill House for a Virtual Reading & Conversation with August Merrill Fellow TALVIKKI ANSEL and JMH Committee member Geoffrey Little TALVIKKI ANSEL is the author of two collections of poems: My Shining Archipelago, for which she received the 1996 Yale Younger Poets prize, and Somewhere in Space (2015), which received The Journal Award in Poetry from Ohio State University Press. She's been anthologized in Firsts: 100 Years of Yale Younger Poets (Yale University Press, 2019) and elsewhere. A former artist-in-residence at The Connecticut Audubon Society's Trail Wood, she teaches at University of Rhode Island.

If you're able to contribute during this challenging time, please do. $5 suggested donation https://jamesmerrillhouse.org/about/financials/#donate Merrill House Writer-in-Residence, Keith S. Wilson reading March 28, 2020 moderated by Geoffrey Little, JMH Committee Member Keith S. Wilson is an Affrilachian Poet and Cave Canem fellow. He is a recipient of an NEA fellowship as well as fellowships/grants from Bread Loaf, Kenyon College, Tin House, MacDowell, Vermont Studio Center, UCross, and Millay Colony, among others. Keith serves as Assistant Poetry Editor at Four Way Review and Digital Media Editor at Obsidian Journal. His first book, Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love, was published by Copper Canyon. Keith’s work in game design includes “Once Upon a Tale,” a storytelling card game designed for Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in collaboration with The Field Museum of Chicago, and alternate reality games (ARGs) for the University of Chicago. He has worked with or taught new media with Kenyon College, the Field Museum, the Adler Planetarium, and the University of Chicago. Keith has received a Best of the Net Award, an Illinois Arts Council Agency Literary Award, and the Rumi Prize. He has been anthologized in Best New Poets, and was appointed a Gregory Djanikian Scholar. His nonfiction won a Redivider Blurred Genre prize. Keith’s work has appeared in Poetry, Elle, The Kenyon Review, Adroit Journal, the Boston Review, Crab Orchard Review, Narrative, 32 Poems, Arts & Letters, Rhino, and Vinyl.

Virtual Reading by James Merrill Fellow, Armen Davoudian

Virtual Reading by James Merrill House fellow, Greg Wrenn

Virtual Reading by Yale Younger Poet and James Merrill House fellow, Desiree Bailey

Virtual reading by James Merrill House fellow Kirstin Valdez Quade

a Virtual Reading & Conversation with July Merrill House Fellow CLAIRE LUCHETTE and JMHC member Willard Spiegelman

James Merrill House 14th Annual Merril Lecturer: Mary Jo Salter Interviewed by JMHC member, Willard Spiegelman. Funding for Salter's lecture was generously provided by Connecticut Humanities. https://jamesmerrillhouse.org/ https://cthumanities.org/