“The Moon Slides Down the Stair / To See Who’s There”: The Poetics of the Crossword and the Cross Words of Poetics

Abstract

This article explores the understudied formal, experiential, and historical relationships between crosswords and poetry. Using an illuminating coincidence of names (the poet James Merrill and crossword constructor Patrick Merrell) as indicative of a fundamental experience of language—arbitrariness within a communicative code—I reconsider how the creative impulses and pleasure derived from the cultural and intellectual work of crosswords and poetry touch upon a deeper social consciousness.