We celebrate the great twentieth century American poet James Merrill with readings from the celebrated new biography James Merrill: Life and Art by literary critic Langdon Hammer; a discussion with Hammer and UCLA Professor Stephen Yenser, Merrill’s co-literary executor (with J. D. McClatchy), about Merrill’s career; and readings from Merrill's poems.

Hammer is chair of the Yale English Department and poetry editor at The American Scholar. His biography of Merrill chronicles the life of the renowned poet and in the words of Dan Chiasson in The New Yorker, it is “as vivid and artful account of an author’s life and work as we are likely to encounter.”

This series of readings is organized and hosted by Stephen Yenser, poet and professor at UCLA. Poetry is supported, in part, by the UCLA Department of English and Friends of English.