For For readers of his poetry and of his early thinking on poetry and prayer; not a first book for someone new to Merton.
Should I read this?
For the general reader
2 of 5worth a look
For the researcher
3 of 5worth your time
Difficulty
3 of 5demanding
Poems of his early monastic years, closing with his essay on poetry and the contemplative life, which states a tension he kept returning to.
How it proceeds
Philosophic2 of 5
Scriptural3 of 5
Experiential4 of 5
Sociological1 of 5
Historical1 of 5
Independent intensities, 0–5 — what the work is made of, not how good it is.
Merton's third book of poems, published by New Directions in 1947 (sources and later editions also give 1948). Besides the poems, it ends with an essay, "Poetry and the Contemplative Life" (pp. 93-111), in which the young monk weighs the vocation of the poet against that of the contemplative, a question that runs through his early journals. The poems are collected in The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (1977).
