{"id":8870,"date":"2015-06-29T20:23:33","date_gmt":"2015-06-30T00:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=8870"},"modified":"2017-11-26T11:40:07","modified_gmt":"2017-11-26T15:40:07","slug":"episode-123-the-hidden-wish-of-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-123-the-hidden-wish-of-words","title":{"rendered":"Episode 123 – The Hidden Wish of Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show #123:
\nLangdon Hammer – The Hidden Wish of Words<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/virtualmemories\/Episode_123_-_The_Hidden_Wish_of_Words.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“What I really cared about most, what drew me, was the relationship between lives and work, between how we live and what we do, and what we do with it. And that’s one of James Merrill’s major subjects.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"merrillcover\"<\/a>Langdon Hammer<\/a>, Chair of the Yale English department, joins the show to talk about his new biography, James Merrill: Life and Art<\/a>\"\" (Knopf) (and one of the best books I’ve read this year). We discuss Merrill’s allure as a poet and the alchemy that allowed him to turn base wealth into artistic gold. He also talks about learning the art of literary biography on the fly, the challenge of recreating Merrill’s life in Greece, Merrill’s silence over AIDS, how we can understand the Ouija board-derived poems of Merrill’s masterwork, and more! Give it a listen!<\/a><\/p>\n

“Alchemy is a theme in Merrill’s writing. How is he going to make his own gold, how is he going to transform the lead of his father’s money into a higher value?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"merrillmainshelf\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We also learn about Langdon’s decades at Yale and how students have changed during his time there, what the globalization of English poetry means for the form, why he considers The Book of Ephraim<\/em> to be James Merrill’s greatest poem, and the farthest he traveled to research the book.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/virtualmemories\/Episode_123_-_The_Hidden_Wish_of_Words.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

Enjoy the conversation!<\/a>\u00a0Then check out\u00a0the archives<\/a>\u00a0for more great episodes! You might like:<\/p>\n