Skip to content
TrackPodcasts
artsDec 18, 20244:54pending

James Merrill's "Christmas Tree"

The Daily Poem

About this episode

Today’s selection is an ideal poem for Advent–a bittersweet shape poem that expresses the “hopes and fears of all the years.”

Poet and critic John Hollander wrote of Merrill that he “was continually reengaging those Proustian themes of the retrieval of lost childhood, the operations of involuntary memory and of an imaginative memory even more mysterious.”



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Get every episode summarized

Each time The Daily Poem publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.

Email me new episodes

Free for 3 shows. No card needed.

No transcript yet

This episode has not been transcribed. Request it and it moves to the front of the queue.

James Merrill's "Christmas Tree"

The Daily Poem

0:00
4:54

More episodes

More from The Daily Poem

View all episodes →