7 SESSIONS | 17 HOURS James Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover is an epic masterwork written with– or through– a Ouija board– but also written with–by the grace and virtues of– and through– domestic love, friendship, and affectionate curiosity as medium. Invisible College dove into this poem during the summer of 2024. Very readable, VERY gay, and tons of fun-- the poem contains fascinating information – sometimes disturbing information– about the structure of Being, the hierarchies of heaven, the Earthly story of birth and death, and the role of the Poet in the destiny of the universe. Merrill was a Pisces-- born on my mom's (and Alexander Graham Bell's, Naomi Fry's, and Tracy Anderson's) birthday-- and The Changing Light at Sandover was composed by the seashores of Mystic Connecticut and Key West. I used to dismiss him as some rich formalist from whom what could I possibly need to learn??? Until a mystical breakdown in 2012 (can't make this shit up) led me to this poem– A poem of such wide capacity and tact (I think I’m paraphrasing John Ashbery here) that it seemed to have prophesied two of my own books and laid down track for some of the wildest and most obscure peregrinations of my own soul. In short– the book feels somehow alive– making it highly unlikely as a specimen for study, yet profoundly exciting to even try to wrap one’s head around. This course was a genuine adventure in poetry as medium and magical substance– we literally and quite physically felt our brains and souls stretched and enlarged week by week. And, because the poem engages not only with the spirits of Maya Deren and W.H. Auden (and other beloved friends of Merrill and his partner David Jackson)-- but takes on the 20th century innovation/catastrophe of nuclear fission, the repression of the feminine, ancient and contemporary approaches to the dignity of the self in art, and questions around art’s role in the development of consciousness on Earth and in the great beyond– we had lots of thrilling stuff to dig into. Not to mention the astonishing formal accomplishment, playful sprezzatura, and mysterious combination of deep humility and great ambition holding the epic together. A thrilling journey going far beyond birth and death, penetrating into the deepest mysteries about life on Earth– what it might be for, where it might be going, and why– at the end of the day– art and love really are what to live for. Love, Ariana
