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Hammer (English & dept. chair, Yale Univ.; editor, Hart Crane: Complete Poems) sheds light on poet James Merrill (1926–95) by deftly mixing literary criticism with biography. The objective seems to look at the line between art and life in Merrill's poetry—not the least of which is seen in the intersection between Merrill's obsession with the Ouija board as literary starter and some of his experimental long poems, "Mirabell: Books of Number" (1978) and "The ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More