The Last Book/Poem I Loved: “The Changing Light at Sandover” by James Merrill
It took me three months to pound my way through James Merrill’s epic poem, his universe, his vision of the afterlife as told through a Ouija board in a conversation between Merrill, his partner DJ, and the characters on the other side of the mirror.

I hate agreeing with Harold Bloom. But what can I say? I fall easily and oddly and often (if sceptically) into Bloom’s spells of (particular) historical illumination and (annoying) lucidity.