Merrill Guillory, was the third of seven children born to Gervis and Lillian Boutte Guillory from the rural community of Mallet, Louisiana. Though the family moved from Mallet to Lake Charles, Louisiana at a young tender age, it would be the stories of his parents and grandparents that would shape the way his perspective of life would unfold through words written in his poems.  

His stories are told from the eyes of the heart and the experiences of living in an conflicting world of Creole and African American culture. A culture shaped and defined in the world of “Jim Crow,” and the painful loss of those who walked in that world through an intimate expression of nature found in the pages of “Journey.”