Eve Merriam was a poet, playwright, director, and lecturer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1916, she attended Cornell University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Wisconsin, Columbia University, and has has taught and lectured at many other institutions. Her first book, Family Circle (1946), was selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets by Archibald MacLeish. In addition to her adult poetry, she also wrote picture books and a number of books of poetry for children, including There is No Rhyme for Silver (1964), It Doesn't Always Have to Rhyme (1964), The Inner City Mother Goose (1969), Catch a Little Rhyme (1966), Finding a Poem (1970), Out Loud (1973), and Rainbow Writing (1976). The controversial Inner City Mother Goose, which Merriam once referred to as "just about the most banned book in the country," was the basis for a 1971 Broadway musical, Inner City, and a second musical production, Street Dreams (1982), which was performed in San Francisco, Chicago and New York City. In 1981, she was named the winner of the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. Eve Merriam died in 1992.

eve Merriam died on April 11, 1992, at the age of seventy-five.

She lived with passion, with elegance. She was creative to the

last. When it came time to die, she embraced the experience with

panache, concentratin~ on every moment.

I keep seeing her as I first saw her twenty years ago -- slim,

stylish, as she walked with her quick step into the room. It was at the

MacDowell Colony, 1972. Within minutes we were in her studio, where

we described to each other what we were working on. From that

moment on, what we shared with each other was poetry -- a passion for

words, a consuming pleasure in language. I could never have written my

most recent book without Eve s understanding and constant

encouragement.

She threw herself into every friendship with total attention to the

needs of the other, with love, compassion, fun. Her phone was constantly

rin~ing. She delighted in the body, in physical activity, and each d~[

walked miles in Manhattan, where she lived. She loved even more to wane

by the sea, in the country. At Yaddo, where we spent a month together in

1986, she would walle for an hour around the ponds in the mist before

breakfast, and then in the afternoon would go swimming in the upper

Hudson. She was worldng on her new novel, Down the Manhole.

Her sense of wordplay was prodigious, which accounts for the

classic popularity of her poems for c~ildren. Who could forget:

You be saucer,

i ll be cug,

pig~ybacl~, piggyback,

pic~z me up.

You be tree,

I ll be pears,

carry me, carry me

up the stairs.

You be Good,

I ll be night,

tucle me in, tucl~ me in,

nice and tight.