Poetry and Seances

I went to the lecture by Dr Ben Leubner on the poetry of James Merrill arranged by Corona. I was really intrigued by the connection and use of 'pale' and 'fire' in the excerpt from "The Book of Ephraim' in Divine Comedies (note that it is Comedies and not Comedy). The uses are intentional; Merrill is referencing Dante's Divine Comedy and Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, the next novel we are reading in class. This reference makes me curious to begin my reading of the novel and perhaps explore Merrill's epic poem further as well. The more I read the longer my list of books to read gets. The paradox between the two works is that the poem springs from a novel and the novel sprung out of a poem.

The poem uses lots of photography and film imagery, such as a reversal, creating an unprinted negative of herself (the woman being filmmaker Maya Deren), "fadeout", "low-budget remake", and "early talking pictures".

The poem has twenty-six sections, and starts with a letter of the alphabet, beginning with A and ending with Z.

Ephraim is a first century Roman, who is the spirit guide on the 6th of the nine levels of the afterlife, and is channeled through a Ouija board.

The lecture was fun, informative, and engaging. If you missed it, I suggest you make time fr the next lecture Corona has to offer, so you can get in on the fun :-}


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http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=7155

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http://www.montana.edu/corona