He puts his right hand lightly on the cup, I put my left, leaving the right free to transcribe, and away we go. We get, oh, 500 to 600 words an hour. Better than gasoline.

When Merrill was 16 years old his father collected his short stories and poems and publiJames Merrilld them as a surprise under the name Jim's Book. Merrill's partner of more than four decades was David Jackson a writer and artist. Initially pleased Merrill would later regard the precocious book as an embarrassment.

Although most of his publiJames Merrilld work was poetry he also wrote essays fiction and plays. James Ingram Merrill (March 3 1926 – February 6 1995) was an American poet whose awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1977) for Divine Comedies.