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SUMMARY:Stonington Literary Festival Turns James Merrill’s Centennial Into a Borough-Wide Celebration
DESCRIPTION:Stonington Literary Festival Turns James Merrill’s Centennial Into a Borough-Wide Celebration Oct. 2–4\, bringing more than 40 poets\, writers\, scholars and musicians to Stonington Borough for three days of readings\, concerts\, conversations\, workshops and unusually intimate encounters with the life and work of one of America’s most celebrated poets.\n\nThis isn’t a literary festival confined to a theater or conference center. \nThe Borough itself becomes part of it. \nPrograms spread through La Grua Center\, Borough Hall\, the Stonington Borough Fire House\, NESS and other locations. Visitors can walk the streets that found their way into James Merrill’s poetry\, tour the apartment where he did much of his writing\, visit the cemetery where he is buried\, hear musicians turn his poems into songs and listen to writers who knew him or have been shaped by his work. \nOrganizers expect more than 300 people for roughly 30 events across seven venues. \nThe occasion is a significant one: 2026 marks the 100th anniversary of Merrill’s birth. \nAnd Stonington isn’t simply hosting his centennial. \nIt was his home. \nA Poet Who Made Stonington Part of His Work\nJames Ingram Merrill was born in New York in 1926\, the son of Charles Merrill\, co-founder of Merrill Lynch. \nHis life eventually took him around the world\, particularly to Greece and later Key West\, but Stonington became one of his creative anchors. \nMerrill and his longtime partner\, David Jackson\, made their home at 107 Water Street\, and Merrill owned the building from 1956 until his death in 1995. \nIt became much more than an address. \nMerrill produced virtually all of his major writing during the years he owned the Water Street home. Stonington’s people\, relationships\, houses\, streets and rhythms increasingly entered his work\, and the apartment became a gathering place for writers\, artists and intellectuals. \nOne of his poetry collections was simply called Water Street. \nMerrill eventually accumulated an extraordinary list of honors: the Pulitzer Prize\, two National Book Awards\, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Bollingen Prize among them. \nHis Divine Comedies won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. \nThe Water Street home was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016\, recognized for its association with one of the most significant American writers of the second half of the 20th century. \nThat relationship between writer and place is what gives this festival an unusual advantage. Attendees aren’t discussing Merrill in some distant convention hall. \nThey’re discussing him in the village where he lived and wrote. \nSaturday Turns the Borough Into a Literary Campus\nSaturday\, Oct. 3\, is the festival’s biggest day\, with programming divided into three blocks at 9 a.m.\, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. \nInstead of funneling everyone toward the same stage\, organizers have scheduled simultaneous small-group programs around the Borough. \nAt 9 a.m.\, choices include The Apartment Aesthetic\, a conversation about houses and their symbolic and literal roles in literature; Merrill in Stonington\, exploring his friendships\, writing and life in the village; and Objects & Poems\, an object-based writing workshop with Timothy Donnelly. \nParticipants in that workshop are encouraged to bring an object of their own\, while objects from the James Merrill House collection will also be used as writing prompts. \nThere’s also an Emerging Voices Open Mic\, hosted by Stonington Poet Laureate Christie Max Williams. \nThat structure continues at 11 a.m.\, when the subjects become even more revealing. \nGhosts\, Ouija Boards and Merrill’s Other World\nOne of the weekend’s most intriguing sessions examines a side of Merrill’s work that can surprise people who know him only by reputation. \nMerrill and Jackson spent years experimenting with a Ouija board. \nThose sessions eventually became central to Merrill’s enormous supernatural poetic project\, The Changing Light at Sandover\, in which communication with spirits develops into an elaborate cosmology populated by voices from another world. \nThe festival’s Ghosts\, Ouija & the Occult program explores Merrill’s engagement with mysticism\, spiritualism and the occult and its relationship to Sandover. \nThe session has already sold out\, with organizers directing interested attendees to a waitlist. \nIt’s an example of how deeply the festival is willing to venture into Merrill’s world. This isn’t simply a succession of people reading poems from a podium. \nQueer History\, Poetry of Place and the Yale Connection\nAt the same hour\, another panel places the James Merrill House within the larger story of 20th-century LGBTQ history. \nMerrill and Jackson shared the Water Street home for decades\, and the house’s National Historic Landmark designation recognizes a place associated not only with a major American writer but with a significant same-sex partnership during an era when gay lives were rarely preserved so visibly in the historic record. \nElsewhere\, Rachel Hadas and David Yezzi will explore Merrill’s poetry of place\, including his writing about Greece. \nLa Grua Center hosts another branch of Merrill’s legacy: his relationship with the Yale Series of Younger Poets. \nMerrill served as judge of the influential poetry prize from 1983 through 1989. The James Merrill House later established a partnership with Yale University Press through which Younger Poets Prize winners receive residencies at his Stonington home. \nThe festival panel brings together poets selected during Merrill’s years with the series and writers who later came to Stonington through the residency. \nThat program is free. \nThe Afternoon Gets Playful\nAt 2 p.m.\, one session looks at Merrill’s influence on later writers through Poetic Afterlives\, while another\, Close Encounters With James Merrill\, examines individual poems from different periods of his career. \nThen there’s Wordplay & Crosswords. \nAdrienne Raphel\, Christopher Spaide and Natan Last use Merrill’s fascination with language\, puns and form as the starting point for a program that crosses poetry with puzzles and includes a workshop component devoted to constructing poetic puzzles and puzzling poems. \nIt’s another glimpse of Merrill beyond the imposing literary résumé: a writer fascinated by games\, patterns\, hidden connections and the possibilities contained inside words. \nYou Can Actually Go Upstairs\nPerhaps the most unusual ticket of the weekend isn’t for a reading at all. \nFestival visitors can register for tours of the James Merrill House at 107 Water Street. \nThe third- and fourth-floor apartment remains remarkably close to the way Merrill left it. This is not a reconstructed writer’s room assembled decades afterward from photographs. \nIt is the place itself. \nVisitors enter the colorful\, idiosyncratic rooms in which Merrill and Jackson lived and where much of his major work took shape. \nThe building’s preservation extends to the atmosphere of the apartment\, its furnishings and personal objects. More than 100 writers have subsequently stayed at the house through its writer-in-residence program. \nThe tours are free but require registration and are deliberately small\, with a maximum of 20 people per session. \nThere’s an important limitation: the Merrill apartment is not wheelchair accessible and requires climbing steep stairs. \nWalk Through Merrill’s Stonington\nThe centennial also moves outside. \nHistoric Stonington is leading Stonington Village Literary Walking Tours\, beginning at the Stonington Lighthouse at 7 Water Street. \nThe $25 walks trace the village through its literary history\, including the community Merrill called home for more than four decades. \nThat distinction matters. This isn’t simply a Merrill walking tour. The idea is to place him within Stonington’s broader literary landscape and the writers connected to the village. \nTours are capped at 20 participants and require at least five people to run. \nThere are also Poets Corner Cemetery Tours through Stonington Cemetery during the weekend. \nMusic Gives Six Merrill Poems Another Life\nThe festival begins Friday evening with one of its most ambitious events. \nComposer and pianist Matthew Aucoin joins Grammy-winning tenor Nicholas Phan at La Grua Center for Merrill Songs\, Aucoin’s song cycle setting six Merrill poems to music. \nThe selections stretch across Merrill’s work and include A Downward Look\, The Kimono\, Grass\, Last Words\, Sonnet from Sandover and An Upward Look. \nAucoin received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018 and has had operatic work presented by major companies including the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. Phan is a Grammy-winning lyric tenor and co-founder of Art Song Chicago. \nA reception with drinks and hors d’oeuvres follows the performance. \nTickets are $75\, with a $50 rate for former Merrill Fellows and session leaders. \nHenri Cole Takes the Centennial Stage\nSaturday’s daytime sessions lead into the festival’s keynote program. \nPoet Henri Cole\, a former Merrill Fellow\, delivers the keynote at 5 p.m. at La Grua Center. \nThe program is free and will also be livestreamed. \nThe evening then moves outside the Borough for the Centennial Celebration Dinner Honoring the Merrill Family at The Hounds. \nThe dinner recognizes the family’s role in sustaining Merrill’s legacy and the James Merrill House. Tickets are $175\, with a reduced $100 price for session leaders and former fellows. \nA complimentary shuttle will carry attendees between the village and The Hounds. \nSunday Brings Merrill’s World Together\nSunday morning may be the weekend’s broadest attempt to put Merrill into perspective. \nJames Merrill and His World\, Parts 1 and 2 brings together poets\, scholars and people closely connected to his work for two consecutive panels moderated by Stephen Yenser\, Merrill’s literary executor\, and Langdon Hammer\, author of a major Merrill biography. \nThe participants include Hilton Als\, Matthew Aucoin\, Jennifer Clarvoe\, Peter Dimock\, Rachel Hadas\, Ange Mlinko\, Jonathan Post\, Mary Jo Salter\, Willard Spiegelman and Lee Zimmerman. \nThe program runs from 10 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at La Grua Center and costs $25. \nAt 2 p.m.\, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and writer Hilton Als reads from his introduction to Merrill’s memoir A Different Person\, exploring his own encounter with Merrill’s work\, gay domesticity and the losses of the AIDS era. \nThen the festival ends where Stonington and Merrill’s poetry meet most directly. \nAt 3 p.m.\, former Merrill Fellows gather for a reading of Water Street\, led by Rob Schlegel. \nThe event is free. \nA Festival That Could Only Really Happen Here\nThere’s also plenty happening between the scheduled sessions. \nBank Square Books is operating a pop-up bookstore at the festival’s NESS Centennial Hub. An exhibition runs at La Grua Center. Merrill and Merrill Fellow books will be displayed at the Stonington Free Library. \nThe New England Science & Sailing Foundation Centennial Hub at 70 Water Street serves as festival headquarters from 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Sunday\, with information\, assistance\, festival tote bags and keepsake programs while supplies last. \nMost daytime venues are close enough to navigate on foot\, which may be the festival’s smartest curatorial decision. \nPeople will leave a discussion about Merrill\, walk down the same narrow Borough streets he walked\, pass the building where he lived\, look toward the water that surrounded his daily life and then enter another room for another part of the story. \nFor one weekend\, the separation between literary festival\, historic house and historic village largely disappears. \nMore information is available at the Event Website link below. \nTo purchase tickets or register for free programs\, click the Event Ticketing link below. \nDetails\nEvent: Stonington Literary Festival: James Merrill Centennial\nDates: Friday\, Oct. 2–Sunday\, Oct. 4\, 2026\nLocation: Multiple venues throughout Stonington Borough\nFestival Focus: Centennial celebration of poet James Merrill’s life\, work and legacy\nScale: More than 300 attendees expected\, 40-plus presenters and approximately 30 events across seven venues\nProgramming: Readings\, panel discussions\, writing workshops\, concerts\, open mic\, literary walking tours\, cemetery tours\, James Merrill House tours\, exhibition\, bookstore and community gatherings\nFriday: Merrill Fellows Reading\, followed by Matthew Aucoin and Nicholas Phan’s Merrill Songs concert and reception\nSaturday Sessions: 9–10 a.m.\, 11 a.m.–noon and 2–3 p.m.\, followed by Henri Cole’s 5 p.m. keynote and the Centennial Celebration Dinner\nSunday: James Merrill and His World panels at 10 a.m.; lunch; Hilton Als at 2 p.m.; Water Street reading at 3 p.m.\nCentennial Hub: NESS\, 70 Water Street\, Stonington\nHub Hours: Saturday 8 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday 9 a.m.–4 p.m.\nIndividual Saturday Sessions: Generally $25; some programs are free\nFriday Concert: $75 general admission; $50 former fellows and session leaders\nSaturday Celebration Dinner: $175 regular admission; $100 session leaders and former fellows\nSunday Sessions: Generally $25 unless otherwise noted\nStudents: Complimentary admission to Saturday and Sunday daytime Centennial events with promo code STUDENT; valid student ID may be requested\nRegistration: Required for every event\, including free programs\nTicket Limit: Saturday block sessions are limited to two tickets per order\nSold-Out Events: Waitlist available when indicated\nLivestreaming: Many La Grua Center programs will be livestreamed\nWalking Tours: $25; generally capped at 20 participants with a five-person minimum\nMerrill Apartment Tours: Free with registration; maximum 20 per tour\nAccessibility: The Portuguese Holy Ghost Society\, NESS and James Merrill Apartment are listed by organizers as not wheelchair accessible\nMerrill House Accessibility: Apartment access requires climbing steep stairs; there is no elevator\nTransportation: Most daytime venues are within walking distance in Stonington Borough; complimentary shuttle service is available for the Saturday Celebration Dinner\nRefunds: Ticket sales are final; no refunds or exchanges\nSchedule: Programming is subject to change \n\n  \nFeatured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people\, location\, or activities shown.
URL:https://thectbeacon.com/event/stonington-literary-festival-turns-james-merrills-centennial-into-a-borough-wide-celebration/2026-10-04/
LOCATION:Various – Check description
CATEGORIES:Various
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://thectbeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Stonington-Literary-Festival-Turns-James-Merrills-Centennial-Into-a-Village-Wide-Celebration.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261003T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261003T190000
DTSTAMP:20261001T154752Z
CREATED:20261001T154752Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261001T154752Z
UID:10009220-1791018000-1791054000@thectbeacon.com
SUMMARY:Stonington Literary Festival Turns James Merrill’s Centennial Into a Borough-Wide Celebration
DESCRIPTION:Stonington Literary Festival Turns James Merrill’s Centennial Into a Borough-Wide Celebration Oct. 2–4\, bringing more than 40 poets\, writers\, scholars and musicians to Stonington Borough for three days of readings\, concerts\, conversations\, workshops and unusually intimate encounters with the life and work of one of America’s most celebrated poets.\n\nThis isn’t a literary festival confined to a theater or conference center. \nThe Borough itself becomes part of it. \nPrograms spread through La Grua Center\, Borough Hall\, the Stonington Borough Fire House\, NESS and other locations. Visitors can walk the streets that found their way into James Merrill’s poetry\, tour the apartment where he did much of his writing\, visit the cemetery where he is buried\, hear musicians turn his poems into songs and listen to writers who knew him or have been shaped by his work. \nOrganizers expect more than 300 people for roughly 30 events across seven venues. \nThe occasion is a significant one: 2026 marks the 100th anniversary of Merrill’s birth. \nAnd Stonington isn’t simply hosting his centennial. \nIt was his home. \nA Poet Who Made Stonington Part of His Work\nJames Ingram Merrill was born in New York in 1926\, the son of Charles Merrill\, co-founder of Merrill Lynch. \nHis life eventually took him around the world\, particularly to Greece and later Key West\, but Stonington became one of his creative anchors. \nMerrill and his longtime partner\, David Jackson\, made their home at 107 Water Street\, and Merrill owned the building from 1956 until his death in 1995. \nIt became much more than an address. \nMerrill produced virtually all of his major writing during the years he owned the Water Street home. Stonington’s people\, relationships\, houses\, streets and rhythms increasingly entered his work\, and the apartment became a gathering place for writers\, artists and intellectuals. \nOne of his poetry collections was simply called Water Street. \nMerrill eventually accumulated an extraordinary list of honors: the Pulitzer Prize\, two National Book Awards\, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Bollingen Prize among them. \nHis Divine Comedies won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. \nThe Water Street home was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016\, recognized for its association with one of the most significant American writers of the second half of the 20th century. \nThat relationship between writer and place is what gives this festival an unusual advantage. Attendees aren’t discussing Merrill in some distant convention hall. \nThey’re discussing him in the village where he lived and wrote. \nSaturday Turns the Borough Into a Literary Campus\nSaturday\, Oct. 3\, is the festival’s biggest day\, with programming divided into three blocks at 9 a.m.\, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. \nInstead of funneling everyone toward the same stage\, organizers have scheduled simultaneous small-group programs around the Borough. \nAt 9 a.m.\, choices include The Apartment Aesthetic\, a conversation about houses and their symbolic and literal roles in literature; Merrill in Stonington\, exploring his friendships\, writing and life in the village; and Objects & Poems\, an object-based writing workshop with Timothy Donnelly. \nParticipants in that workshop are encouraged to bring an object of their own\, while objects from the James Merrill House collection will also be used as writing prompts. \nThere’s also an Emerging Voices Open Mic\, hosted by Stonington Poet Laureate Christie Max Williams. \nThat structure continues at 11 a.m.\, when the subjects become even more revealing. \nGhosts\, Ouija Boards and Merrill’s Other World\nOne of the weekend’s most intriguing sessions examines a side of Merrill’s work that can surprise people who know him only by reputation. \nMerrill and Jackson spent years experimenting with a Ouija board. \nThose sessions eventually became central to Merrill’s enormous supernatural poetic project\, The Changing Light at Sandover\, in which communication with spirits develops into an elaborate cosmology populated by voices from another world. \nThe festival’s Ghosts\, Ouija & the Occult program explores Merrill’s engagement with mysticism\, spiritualism and the occult and its relationship to Sandover. \nThe session has already sold out\, with organizers directing interested attendees to a waitlist. \nIt’s an example of how deeply the festival is willing to venture into Merrill’s world. This isn’t simply a succession of people reading poems from a podium. \nQueer History\, Poetry of Place and the Yale Connection\nAt the same hour\, another panel places the James Merrill House within the larger story of 20th-century LGBTQ history. \nMerrill and Jackson shared the Water Street home for decades\, and the house’s National Historic Landmark designation recognizes a place associated not only with a major American writer but with a significant same-sex partnership during an era when gay lives were rarely preserved so visibly in the historic record. \nElsewhere\, Rachel Hadas and David Yezzi will explore Merrill’s poetry of place\, including his writing about Greece. \nLa Grua Center hosts another branch of Merrill’s legacy: his relationship with the Yale Series of Younger Poets. \nMerrill served as judge of the influential poetry prize from 1983 through 1989. The James Merrill House later established a partnership with Yale University Press through which Younger Poets Prize winners receive residencies at his Stonington home. \nThe festival panel brings together poets selected during Merrill’s years with the series and writers who later came to Stonington through the residency. \nThat program is free. \nThe Afternoon Gets Playful\nAt 2 p.m.\, one session looks at Merrill’s influence on later writers through Poetic Afterlives\, while another\, Close Encounters With James Merrill\, examines individual poems from different periods of his career. \nThen there’s Wordplay & Crosswords. \nAdrienne Raphel\, Christopher Spaide and Natan Last use Merrill’s fascination with language\, puns and form as the starting point for a program that crosses poetry with puzzles and includes a workshop component devoted to constructing poetic puzzles and puzzling poems. \nIt’s another glimpse of Merrill beyond the imposing literary résumé: a writer fascinated by games\, patterns\, hidden connections and the possibilities contained inside words. \nYou Can Actually Go Upstairs\nPerhaps the most unusual ticket of the weekend isn’t for a reading at all. \nFestival visitors can register for tours of the James Merrill House at 107 Water Street. \nThe third- and fourth-floor apartment remains remarkably close to the way Merrill left it. This is not a reconstructed writer’s room assembled decades afterward from photographs. \nIt is the place itself. \nVisitors enter the colorful\, idiosyncratic rooms in which Merrill and Jackson lived and where much of his major work took shape. \nThe building’s preservation extends to the atmosphere of the apartment\, its furnishings and personal objects. More than 100 writers have subsequently stayed at the house through its writer-in-residence program. \nThe tours are free but require registration and are deliberately small\, with a maximum of 20 people per session. \nThere’s an important limitation: the Merrill apartment is not wheelchair accessible and requires climbing steep stairs. \nWalk Through Merrill’s Stonington\nThe centennial also moves outside. \nHistoric Stonington is leading Stonington Village Literary Walking Tours\, beginning at the Stonington Lighthouse at 7 Water Street. \nThe $25 walks trace the village through its literary history\, including the community Merrill called home for more than four decades. \nThat distinction matters. This isn’t simply a Merrill walking tour. The idea is to place him within Stonington’s broader literary landscape and the writers connected to the village. \nTours are capped at 20 participants and require at least five people to run. \nThere are also Poets Corner Cemetery Tours through Stonington Cemetery during the weekend. \nMusic Gives Six Merrill Poems Another Life\nThe festival begins Friday evening with one of its most ambitious events. \nComposer and pianist Matthew Aucoin joins Grammy-winning tenor Nicholas Phan at La Grua Center for Merrill Songs\, Aucoin’s song cycle setting six Merrill poems to music. \nThe selections stretch across Merrill’s work and include A Downward Look\, The Kimono\, Grass\, Last Words\, Sonnet from Sandover and An Upward Look. \nAucoin received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018 and has had operatic work presented by major companies including the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. Phan is a Grammy-winning lyric tenor and co-founder of Art Song Chicago. \nA reception with drinks and hors d’oeuvres follows the performance. \nTickets are $75\, with a $50 rate for former Merrill Fellows and session leaders. \nHenri Cole Takes the Centennial Stage\nSaturday’s daytime sessions lead into the festival’s keynote program. \nPoet Henri Cole\, a former Merrill Fellow\, delivers the keynote at 5 p.m. at La Grua Center. \nThe program is free and will also be livestreamed. \nThe evening then moves outside the Borough for the Centennial Celebration Dinner Honoring the Merrill Family at The Hounds. \nThe dinner recognizes the family’s role in sustaining Merrill’s legacy and the James Merrill House. Tickets are $175\, with a reduced $100 price for session leaders and former fellows. \nA complimentary shuttle will carry attendees between the village and The Hounds. \nSunday Brings Merrill’s World Together\nSunday morning may be the weekend’s broadest attempt to put Merrill into perspective. \nJames Merrill and His World\, Parts 1 and 2 brings together poets\, scholars and people closely connected to his work for two consecutive panels moderated by Stephen Yenser\, Merrill’s literary executor\, and Langdon Hammer\, author of a major Merrill biography. \nThe participants include Hilton Als\, Matthew Aucoin\, Jennifer Clarvoe\, Peter Dimock\, Rachel Hadas\, Ange Mlinko\, Jonathan Post\, Mary Jo Salter\, Willard Spiegelman and Lee Zimmerman. \nThe program runs from 10 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at La Grua Center and costs $25. \nAt 2 p.m.\, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and writer Hilton Als reads from his introduction to Merrill’s memoir A Different Person\, exploring his own encounter with Merrill’s work\, gay domesticity and the losses of the AIDS era. \nThen the festival ends where Stonington and Merrill’s poetry meet most directly. \nAt 3 p.m.\, former Merrill Fellows gather for a reading of Water Street\, led by Rob Schlegel. \nThe event is free. \nA Festival That Could Only Really Happen Here\nThere’s also plenty happening between the scheduled sessions. \nBank Square Books is operating a pop-up bookstore at the festival’s NESS Centennial Hub. An exhibition runs at La Grua Center. Merrill and Merrill Fellow books will be displayed at the Stonington Free Library. \nThe New England Science & Sailing Foundation Centennial Hub at 70 Water Street serves as festival headquarters from 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Sunday\, with information\, assistance\, festival tote bags and keepsake programs while supplies last. \nMost daytime venues are close enough to navigate on foot\, which may be the festival’s smartest curatorial decision. \nPeople will leave a discussion about Merrill\, walk down the same narrow Borough streets he walked\, pass the building where he lived\, look toward the water that surrounded his daily life and then enter another room for another part of the story. \nFor one weekend\, the separation between literary festival\, historic house and historic village largely disappears. \nMore information is available at the Event Website link below. \nTo purchase tickets or register for free programs\, click the Event Ticketing link below. \nDetails\nEvent: Stonington Literary Festival: James Merrill Centennial\nDates: Friday\, Oct. 2–Sunday\, Oct. 4\, 2026\nLocation: Multiple venues throughout Stonington Borough\nFestival Focus: Centennial celebration of poet James Merrill’s life\, work and legacy\nScale: More than 300 attendees expected\, 40-plus presenters and approximately 30 events across seven venues\nProgramming: Readings\, panel discussions\, writing workshops\, concerts\, open mic\, literary walking tours\, cemetery tours\, James Merrill House tours\, exhibition\, bookstore and community gatherings\nFriday: Merrill Fellows Reading\, followed by Matthew Aucoin and Nicholas Phan’s Merrill Songs concert and reception\nSaturday Sessions: 9–10 a.m.\, 11 a.m.–noon and 2–3 p.m.\, followed by Henri Cole’s 5 p.m. keynote and the Centennial Celebration Dinner\nSunday: James Merrill and His World panels at 10 a.m.; lunch; Hilton Als at 2 p.m.; Water Street reading at 3 p.m.\nCentennial Hub: NESS\, 70 Water Street\, Stonington\nHub Hours: Saturday 8 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday 9 a.m.–4 p.m.\nIndividual Saturday Sessions: Generally $25; some programs are free\nFriday Concert: $75 general admission; $50 former fellows and session leaders\nSaturday Celebration Dinner: $175 regular admission; $100 session leaders and former fellows\nSunday Sessions: Generally $25 unless otherwise noted\nStudents: Complimentary admission to Saturday and Sunday daytime Centennial events with promo code STUDENT; valid student ID may be requested\nRegistration: Required for every event\, including free programs\nTicket Limit: Saturday block sessions are limited to two tickets per order\nSold-Out Events: Waitlist available when indicated\nLivestreaming: Many La Grua Center programs will be livestreamed\nWalking Tours: $25; generally capped at 20 participants with a five-person minimum\nMerrill Apartment Tours: Free with registration; maximum 20 per tour\nAccessibility: The Portuguese Holy Ghost Society\, NESS and James Merrill Apartment are listed by organizers as not wheelchair accessible\nMerrill House Accessibility: Apartment access requires climbing steep stairs; there is no elevator\nTransportation: Most daytime venues are within walking distance in Stonington Borough; complimentary shuttle service is available for the Saturday Celebration Dinner\nRefunds: Ticket sales are final; no refunds or exchanges\nSchedule: Programming is subject to change \n\n  \nFeatured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people\, location\, or activities shown.
URL:https://thectbeacon.com/event/stonington-literary-festival-turns-james-merrills-centennial-into-a-borough-wide-celebration/2026-10-03/
LOCATION:Various – Check description
CATEGORIES:Various
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://thectbeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Stonington-Literary-Festival-Turns-James-Merrills-Centennial-Into-a-Village-Wide-Celebration.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261002T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261002T190000
DTSTAMP:20261001T154752Z
CREATED:20261001T154752Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261001T154752Z
UID:10009219-1790949600-1790967600@thectbeacon.com
SUMMARY:Stonington Literary Festival Turns James Merrill’s Centennial Into a Borough-Wide Celebration
DESCRIPTION:Stonington Literary Festival Turns James Merrill’s Centennial Into a Borough-Wide Celebration Oct. 2–4\, bringing more than 40 poets\, writers\, scholars and musicians to Stonington Borough for three days of readings\, concerts\, conversations\, workshops and unusually intimate encounters with the life and work of one of America’s most celebrated poets.\n\nThis isn’t a literary festival confined to a theater or conference center. \nThe Borough itself becomes part of it. \nPrograms spread through La Grua Center\, Borough Hall\, the Stonington Borough Fire House\, NESS and other locations. Visitors can walk the streets that found their way into James Merrill’s poetry\, tour the apartment where he did much of his writing\, visit the cemetery where he is buried\, hear musicians turn his poems into songs and listen to writers who knew him or have been shaped by his work. \nOrganizers expect more than 300 people for roughly 30 events across seven venues. \nThe occasion is a significant one: 2026 marks the 100th anniversary of Merrill’s birth. \nAnd Stonington isn’t simply hosting his centennial. \nIt was his home. \nA Poet Who Made Stonington Part of His Work\nJames Ingram Merrill was born in New York in 1926\, the son of Charles Merrill\, co-founder of Merrill Lynch. \nHis life eventually took him around the world\, particularly to Greece and later Key West\, but Stonington became one of his creative anchors. \nMerrill and his longtime partner\, David Jackson\, made their home at 107 Water Street\, and Merrill owned the building from 1956 until his death in 1995. \nIt became much more than an address. \nMerrill produced virtually all of his major writing during the years he owned the Water Street home. Stonington’s people\, relationships\, houses\, streets and rhythms increasingly entered his work\, and the apartment became a gathering place for writers\, artists and intellectuals. \nOne of his poetry collections was simply called Water Street. \nMerrill eventually accumulated an extraordinary list of honors: the Pulitzer Prize\, two National Book Awards\, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Bollingen Prize among them. \nHis Divine Comedies won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. \nThe Water Street home was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016\, recognized for its association with one of the most significant American writers of the second half of the 20th century. \nThat relationship between writer and place is what gives this festival an unusual advantage. Attendees aren’t discussing Merrill in some distant convention hall. \nThey’re discussing him in the village where he lived and wrote. \nSaturday Turns the Borough Into a Literary Campus\nSaturday\, Oct. 3\, is the festival’s biggest day\, with programming divided into three blocks at 9 a.m.\, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. \nInstead of funneling everyone toward the same stage\, organizers have scheduled simultaneous small-group programs around the Borough. \nAt 9 a.m.\, choices include The Apartment Aesthetic\, a conversation about houses and their symbolic and literal roles in literature; Merrill in Stonington\, exploring his friendships\, writing and life in the village; and Objects & Poems\, an object-based writing workshop with Timothy Donnelly. \nParticipants in that workshop are encouraged to bring an object of their own\, while objects from the James Merrill House collection will also be used as writing prompts. \nThere’s also an Emerging Voices Open Mic\, hosted by Stonington Poet Laureate Christie Max Williams. \nThat structure continues at 11 a.m.\, when the subjects become even more revealing. \nGhosts\, Ouija Boards and Merrill’s Other World\nOne of the weekend’s most intriguing sessions examines a side of Merrill’s work that can surprise people who know him only by reputation. \nMerrill and Jackson spent years experimenting with a Ouija board. \nThose sessions eventually became central to Merrill’s enormous supernatural poetic project\, The Changing Light at Sandover\, in which communication with spirits develops into an elaborate cosmology populated by voices from another world. \nThe festival’s Ghosts\, Ouija & the Occult program explores Merrill’s engagement with mysticism\, spiritualism and the occult and its relationship to Sandover. \nThe session has already sold out\, with organizers directing interested attendees to a waitlist. \nIt’s an example of how deeply the festival is willing to venture into Merrill’s world. This isn’t simply a succession of people reading poems from a podium. \nQueer History\, Poetry of Place and the Yale Connection\nAt the same hour\, another panel places the James Merrill House within the larger story of 20th-century LGBTQ history. \nMerrill and Jackson shared the Water Street home for decades\, and the house’s National Historic Landmark designation recognizes a place associated not only with a major American writer but with a significant same-sex partnership during an era when gay lives were rarely preserved so visibly in the historic record. \nElsewhere\, Rachel Hadas and David Yezzi will explore Merrill’s poetry of place\, including his writing about Greece. \nLa Grua Center hosts another branch of Merrill’s legacy: his relationship with the Yale Series of Younger Poets. \nMerrill served as judge of the influential poetry prize from 1983 through 1989. The James Merrill House later established a partnership with Yale University Press through which Younger Poets Prize winners receive residencies at his Stonington home. \nThe festival panel brings together poets selected during Merrill’s years with the series and writers who later came to Stonington through the residency. \nThat program is free. \nThe Afternoon Gets Playful\nAt 2 p.m.\, one session looks at Merrill’s influence on later writers through Poetic Afterlives\, while another\, Close Encounters With James Merrill\, examines individual poems from different periods of his career. \nThen there’s Wordplay & Crosswords. \nAdrienne Raphel\, Christopher Spaide and Natan Last use Merrill’s fascination with language\, puns and form as the starting point for a program that crosses poetry with puzzles and includes a workshop component devoted to constructing poetic puzzles and puzzling poems. \nIt’s another glimpse of Merrill beyond the imposing literary résumé: a writer fascinated by games\, patterns\, hidden connections and the possibilities contained inside words. \nYou Can Actually Go Upstairs\nPerhaps the most unusual ticket of the weekend isn’t for a reading at all. \nFestival visitors can register for tours of the James Merrill House at 107 Water Street. \nThe third- and fourth-floor apartment remains remarkably close to the way Merrill left it. This is not a reconstructed writer’s room assembled decades afterward from photographs. \nIt is the place itself. \nVisitors enter the colorful\, idiosyncratic rooms in which Merrill and Jackson lived and where much of his major work took shape. \nThe building’s preservation extends to the atmosphere of the apartment\, its furnishings and personal objects. More than 100 writers have subsequently stayed at the house through its writer-in-residence program. \nThe tours are free but require registration and are deliberately small\, with a maximum of 20 people per session. \nThere’s an important limitation: the Merrill apartment is not wheelchair accessible and requires climbing steep stairs. \nWalk Through Merrill’s Stonington\nThe centennial also moves outside. \nHistoric Stonington is leading Stonington Village Literary Walking Tours\, beginning at the Stonington Lighthouse at 7 Water Street. \nThe $25 walks trace the village through its literary history\, including the community Merrill called home for more than four decades. \nThat distinction matters. This isn’t simply a Merrill walking tour. The idea is to place him within Stonington’s broader literary landscape and the writers connected to the village. \nTours are capped at 20 participants and require at least five people to run. \nThere are also Poets Corner Cemetery Tours through Stonington Cemetery during the weekend. \nMusic Gives Six Merrill Poems Another Life\nThe festival begins Friday evening with one of its most ambitious events. \nComposer and pianist Matthew Aucoin joins Grammy-winning tenor Nicholas Phan at La Grua Center for Merrill Songs\, Aucoin’s song cycle setting six Merrill poems to music. \nThe selections stretch across Merrill’s work and include A Downward Look\, The Kimono\, Grass\, Last Words\, Sonnet from Sandover and An Upward Look. \nAucoin received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018 and has had operatic work presented by major companies including the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. Phan is a Grammy-winning lyric tenor and co-founder of Art Song Chicago. \nA reception with drinks and hors d’oeuvres follows the performance. \nTickets are $75\, with a $50 rate for former Merrill Fellows and session leaders. \nHenri Cole Takes the Centennial Stage\nSaturday’s daytime sessions lead into the festival’s keynote program. \nPoet Henri Cole\, a former Merrill Fellow\, delivers the keynote at 5 p.m. at La Grua Center. \nThe program is free and will also be livestreamed. \nThe evening then moves outside the Borough for the Centennial Celebration Dinner Honoring the Merrill Family at The Hounds. \nThe dinner recognizes the family’s role in sustaining Merrill’s legacy and the James Merrill House. Tickets are $175\, with a reduced $100 price for session leaders and former fellows. \nA complimentary shuttle will carry attendees between the village and The Hounds. \nSunday Brings Merrill’s World Together\nSunday morning may be the weekend’s broadest attempt to put Merrill into perspective. \nJames Merrill and His World\, Parts 1 and 2 brings together poets\, scholars and people closely connected to his work for two consecutive panels moderated by Stephen Yenser\, Merrill’s literary executor\, and Langdon Hammer\, author of a major Merrill biography. \nThe participants include Hilton Als\, Matthew Aucoin\, Jennifer Clarvoe\, Peter Dimock\, Rachel Hadas\, Ange Mlinko\, Jonathan Post\, Mary Jo Salter\, Willard Spiegelman and Lee Zimmerman. \nThe program runs from 10 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at La Grua Center and costs $25. \nAt 2 p.m.\, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and writer Hilton Als reads from his introduction to Merrill’s memoir A Different Person\, exploring his own encounter with Merrill’s work\, gay domesticity and the losses of the AIDS era. \nThen the festival ends where Stonington and Merrill’s poetry meet most directly. \nAt 3 p.m.\, former Merrill Fellows gather for a reading of Water Street\, led by Rob Schlegel. \nThe event is free. \nA Festival That Could Only Really Happen Here\nThere’s also plenty happening between the scheduled sessions. \nBank Square Books is operating a pop-up bookstore at the festival’s NESS Centennial Hub. An exhibition runs at La Grua Center. Merrill and Merrill Fellow books will be displayed at the Stonington Free Library. \nThe New England Science & Sailing Foundation Centennial Hub at 70 Water Street serves as festival headquarters from 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Sunday\, with information\, assistance\, festival tote bags and keepsake programs while supplies last. \nMost daytime venues are close enough to navigate on foot\, which may be the festival’s smartest curatorial decision. \nPeople will leave a discussion about Merrill\, walk down the same narrow Borough streets he walked\, pass the building where he lived\, look toward the water that surrounded his daily life and then enter another room for another part of the story. \nFor one weekend\, the separation between literary festival\, historic house and historic village largely disappears. \nMore information is available at the Event Website link below. \nTo purchase tickets or register for free programs\, click the Event Ticketing link below. \nDetails\nEvent: Stonington Literary Festival: James Merrill Centennial\nDates: Friday\, Oct. 2–Sunday\, Oct. 4\, 2026\nLocation: Multiple venues throughout Stonington Borough\nFestival Focus: Centennial celebration of poet James Merrill’s life\, work and legacy\nScale: More than 300 attendees expected\, 40-plus presenters and approximately 30 events across seven venues\nProgramming: Readings\, panel discussions\, writing workshops\, concerts\, open mic\, literary walking tours\, cemetery tours\, James Merrill House tours\, exhibition\, bookstore and community gatherings\nFriday: Merrill Fellows Reading\, followed by Matthew Aucoin and Nicholas Phan’s Merrill Songs concert and reception\nSaturday Sessions: 9–10 a.m.\, 11 a.m.–noon and 2–3 p.m.\, followed by Henri Cole’s 5 p.m. keynote and the Centennial Celebration Dinner\nSunday: James Merrill and His World panels at 10 a.m.; lunch; Hilton Als at 2 p.m.; Water Street reading at 3 p.m.\nCentennial Hub: NESS\, 70 Water Street\, Stonington\nHub Hours: Saturday 8 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday 9 a.m.–4 p.m.\nIndividual Saturday Sessions: Generally $25; some programs are free\nFriday Concert: $75 general admission; $50 former fellows and session leaders\nSaturday Celebration Dinner: $175 regular admission; $100 session leaders and former fellows\nSunday Sessions: Generally $25 unless otherwise noted\nStudents: Complimentary admission to Saturday and Sunday daytime Centennial events with promo code STUDENT; valid student ID may be requested\nRegistration: Required for every event\, including free programs\nTicket Limit: Saturday block sessions are limited to two tickets per order\nSold-Out Events: Waitlist available when indicated\nLivestreaming: Many La Grua Center programs will be livestreamed\nWalking Tours: $25; generally capped at 20 participants with a five-person minimum\nMerrill Apartment Tours: Free with registration; maximum 20 per tour\nAccessibility: The Portuguese Holy Ghost Society\, NESS and James Merrill Apartment are listed by organizers as not wheelchair accessible\nMerrill House Accessibility: Apartment access requires climbing steep stairs; there is no elevator\nTransportation: Most daytime venues are within walking distance in Stonington Borough; complimentary shuttle service is available for the Saturday Celebration Dinner\nRefunds: Ticket sales are final; no refunds or exchanges\nSchedule: Programming is subject to change \n\n  \nFeatured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people\, location\, or activities shown.
URL:https://thectbeacon.com/event/stonington-literary-festival-turns-james-merrills-centennial-into-a-borough-wide-celebration/2026-10-02/
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