Braving the Elements was published by Atheneum in 1972, and it won the Bollingen Prize — recognition that Merrill was now regarded as one of the foremost American poets. The collection is more various in tone and form than its predecessors: it includes short lyrics, longer meditative poems, and several poems that experiment with visual arrangement on the page in ways that anticipate the formal inventiveness of Sandover.
The title carries multiple meanings: “braving” as courage (facing emotional difficulties without flinching), and “elements” as both the classical four elements (fire, water, earth, air — which recur as organizing images throughout the collection) and the elemental forces of experience (desire, grief, memory, time) that poetry must transform into art.
The collection includes “After the Fire” (about returning to a house after it has been damaged by fire — literally and metaphorically), “Days of 1971” (a love poem set in Greece that extends the “Days of…” series begun in Nights and Days), and “Syrinx” (a poem about the myth of Pan and the nymph, and about the relationship between desire and art). The range — from intimate domestic lyric to mythological meditation — demonstrates Merrill’s conviction that all subjects are available to poetry, and that formal mastery permits the poet to move freely between registers without incongruity.
Collecting Braving the Elements
First edition (Atheneum, New York, 1972): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $40–$100
- Without jacket: $10–$25