James Merrill reads from his piece "The Changing Light at Sandover," a poem based on his and David Jackson's experiences with their Ouija board seances, at the first James Merrill Symposium. He is accompanied here by Peter Hooten voicing the…
The bronzed death mask was Peter Hooten's idea, "but the juvenile author of "Death Masks"...would have appreciated it" (see Merrill's poem "Death Masks" in Love and Money, Publications).
A photo of Peter Hooten, James Merrill's last partner. Their relationship started in 1983, when Hooten declared his love for Merrill "on Valentine's Eve," in Key West, Florida.