He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton in 1940, having written a senior thesis on Robert Frost.

Archibald MacLeish selected it for publication as part of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition.

Meredith worked briefly for the New York Times as a copy boy and reporter before joining the United States Army Air Force in 1941.

He continued his service in the United States Navy Reserve until 1952, when he reenlisted to serve in the Korean War.

He settled on a farm in Uncasville, where he continued to write poetry and developed his talents as an arborist, planting and nurturing rare trees on the banks of the Thames.

During this period, he also taught for several years in the summer graduate program at Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English.

The collection documents his life and work as of one of Connecticut College's most eminent faculty members and one of the nation's most respected poets.

[citation needed] Meredith died in New London, Connecticut, near his home in Montville, where he lived with his partner of 36 years, the poet and fiction writer Richard Harteis.