A Yearlong Residence on Water Street: Merrill home opens to a published poet

By ELIZABETH YERKES
Shore Publishing Staff Writer
Published by The Stonington Times on 9/30/2005

Stonington - He's a published poet and admits he's "very nocturnal." But this year's writer-in-residence at the Merrill House also opens doors for women, confesses to renting the entire first season of "The OC," and believes "it's a poet's responsibility to keep people awake during a poetry reading."

Jason Zuzga, 32, will live and work in the late James Merrill's home at 107 Water St. as this year's resident writer. Typically, universities sponsor writer-in-residence programs. In the borough, however, the Stonington Village Improvement Association runs the program as stipulated by Merrill's will.

Not every resident writer chosen is a poet, but Zuzga's work experience seems particularly fitting for his selection.

"I had the chance to work on the collected poems of James Merrill -- it was an incredible honor," Zuzga said.

Harry Ford was Merrill's editor and Zuzga's boss at Alfred A. Knopf Publishing, a subsidiary of Random House Inc. Among other accolades, Merrill garnered a Pulitzer Prize and the first Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry awarded by the Library of Congress before his death at age 68.

Zuzga is a native of Cherry Hill, N.J., and will begin a Ph.D. program at the University of Pennsylvania next fall in English literature, "but I'll always have horse-drawn carriage-driving to fall back on," he said.

Zuzga is fresh from earning a master's in fine arts in writing at University of Arizona-Tuscon. Although he enjoyed teaching and writing there, he's relieved to have left the desert.

"Living in Arizona was like wearing something scratchy underneath. I had these ... experiences outside of teaching; I was chased by killer bees, had my laundry stolen out of my car," and, to top it off, while in the desert one night watching a comet shower, Zuzga walked head-on into a cactus.

To this Brown University grad, who also spent a semester aboard a tall ship sailing the Eastern Seaboard, a year in Stonington will feel like coming home.

The Merrill House is kept as James had lived there for 40 years, 20 of them with his friend David Jackson. He was the son of Charles Merrill, co-founder of the brokerage firm Merrill Lynch, and Charles' second wife, Hellen Ingram.

The Merrill House location, on Water Street with relatively unobstructed sound views, is enough to make a real estate broker's palms sweat. An eclectic combination of eastern and western decorating styles blend in the three stories that include a rooftop patio and study big enough for the baby grand piano, a futon and, of course, bookshelves. Occasional photographs of Merrill are displayed in the same room they were taken.

"The objects around the house are inspiring; each one has its own story. I feel like each one is encouraging me in my writing," Zuzga said.

Pointing to a 2-inch-high figurine on the top shelf of Merrill's tchatchkes, Zuzga said, "This one's my favorite -- a Charlie Brown made out of beach pebbles."

Zuzga brought some things of his own to the Merrill House to join the many pleasant, inspirational objects for the year. Mostly he brought books.

"Too many," he sighed, pulling from a cardboard box a book of poems in one hand and a collection of sweet, quotidian cartoons in another.

Zuzga said Merrill shared meals and Ouija board sessions with Jackson with Jackson in the bright, sunny domed dining room for 20 years. Two walls of tall windows look out over Water Street and beyond. It is the same watermelon-colored room that Merrill described in the opening pages of "Changing Light of Sandover."

"I don't know if Merrill really believed in Ouija board predictions," Zuzga said, opening "Sandover" to the pages describing the room. "It's not clear from what he wrote how much he believed in the other world."

The milky-white table and Ouija board still stand there. So does a collection of teacups the two used as planchettes.

Poets communicating with the dead: Is that, well, a little freaky for Zuzga?

"Not really. I think of it as continuity of dead people with live people; so ... I'm here now in a dead poet's home writing poetry," he said.

Zuzga's "100 Clews" and other work he'll be polishing this year are, well, readable. While not pop-poetry, it relies on contemporary imagery, meter and familiar social and cultural allusions.

Zuzga called Kenneth Coke one of his "poet heroes," whose influence allowed him to write accessible poetry without sacrificing core principles such as complexity.

He said he usually falls asleep during poetry readings because writers neglect the performance aspect of reading to an audience.

"I told my classes in Tucson you should take as much care presenting your work aloud as you would on this paper," said Zuzga, who has incorporated video segments into his own poetry readings. "I try to make them entertaining."

"We are so glad to have him," said Roland Stebbins, one of the coordinators of the writer-in-residence program. "We're looking forward to having Jason as part of our community, and part of our arts community in particular."

Because the program comes with no stipend, recipients must be self-supporting. To that end, Zuzga is teaching an online writing class for seventh- and eighth-grade students through Johns Hopkins University. Zuzga said he'll write, teach a poetry seminar at the high school, and would like to teach a community poetry class, possibly on the third floor of the Merrill House.

"The thing I love to do the most is teaching poetry. And it would be great to do that and share this space with the community," he said.