Nationality 1: American

Birthdate: 1926

Deathdate: 1995

James Ingram Merrill was born in New York City on March 3, 1926, to Charles Merrill, a stockbroker and cofounder of the firm Merrill Lynch, and Helen Ingram, a newspaper publisher. Merrill developed an appreciation for languages at a young age, when he learned French and German from his governess, who appears in his poem “Lost in Translation.” His parents encouraged his poetry writing during his adolescence. This was apparent when Merrill's father had a collection of Merrill's poetry, Jim's Book, published when his son was only sixteen.

Merrill attended Amherst College, where he first met Robert Frost, one of his major influences. He had to leave Amherst from 1944 to 1945 to serve in the U.S. Army at the end of World War II. After the war, he returned to college, had his first book of poems printed privately under the title The Black...