Published 70 Years Ago: Thomas Merton’s “Thirty Poems”

The renowned writer and Trappist monk Thomas Merton became known to the broader reading public with his famous spiritual autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain in 1948. The book struck a chord with the reading public in the aftermath of World War II and the onset of the atomic age with is persistent threat of total…

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Thomas Merton’s Christmas-themed poem “The Flight Into Egypt”

The great spiritual writer and Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote a number of poems in connection with various liturgical days, saints, and Biblical themes and figures. Merton (1915-1968) was a member of the Trappist monastery at the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Kentucky. It has been seventy years now since Merton’s first collection of poetry—Thirty…

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Perspective

“So many bad books get printed, why can’t my bad book get printed?” –Thomas Merton, Secular Journal.

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Resources for Thomas Merton

There’a a wealth of material on Thomas Merton, so I’m going to list some of the better known biographies and critical works here for anyone who might be interested in learning more about Merton. Here are some important biographies: Living With Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton by Jim Forest (Orbis Books, 1991). Merton: A…

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The Long Journey of Thomas Merton

He was born in France and died in Thailand. But when he was laid to rest it was in the soil of the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Kentucky where he had lived for 27 years as a monk of the Trappist order, officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance. Thomas…

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Happy 83rd Birthday to Toni Morrison!

Happy Birthday to Toni Morrison, born in Lorain, Ohio on February 18, 1931, and one of only six Americans to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Toni Morrison will be profiled on the pages of this blog in the coming week along with Thomas Merton and Erma Bombeck. Please stay tuned!

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