Divine Comedies was published by Atheneum in 1976 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The collection is dominated by “The Book of Ephraim” — a 90-page narrative poem organized alphabetically (A through Z) that records Merrill and David Jackson’s early Ouija board sessions with a spirit called Ephraim, who claims to be a Greek Jew born in the first century AD.
“Ephraim” is the poem that launched the Sandover project. It combines the domestic comedy of Merrill’s lyric poetry (dinner parties, travel, the details of a shared life) with the supernatural content of the Ouija board sessions (reincarnation, cosmic hierarchies, messages from the dead) in a tone that is simultaneously playful and serious. Merrill’s formal choice — alphabetical organization — gives the poem a structure that is arbitrary but liberating: each section begins with a new letter and a new topic, allowing the narrative to proceed by association rather than chronology.
The shorter poems in the collection are among Merrill’s finest: “Lost in Translation” (about a childhood jigsaw puzzle and the nature of memory), “McKane’s Falls” (a landscape meditation), and several love poems of extraordinary delicacy. Together with “Ephraim,” they demonstrate the full range of Merrill’s achievement at the height of his powers.
Collecting Divine Comedies
First edition (Atheneum, New York, 1976): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $50–$150
- Without jacket: $15–$40
- Signed copies: $200–$500