The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (New Directions Paperbook) [Paperback]

Thomas Merton (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Roman Nocturnes (1)
Roman Nocturnes (2)
Roman Nocturnes (3)
Roman Nocturnes (4)
Roman Nocturnes (5)
Splendor Paternae Gloriae
Memories Of The Ancient World
Song For Purification
Cocoa Tree
A Man From Ecuador Beneath The Eiffel Tower
The Mirror's Mission
Notes Of A Parachute Jumper
Radicals
Weathercock On The Cathedral Of Quito
Drake In The Southern Sea
Epigram (1)
Epigram (2)
Epigram (3)
Gethsemani, Ky: 1
Gethsemani, Ky: 10
Gethsemani, Ky: 11
Gethsemani, Ky: 12
Gethsemani, Ky: 2
Gethsemani, Ky: 3
Gethsemani, Ky: 4
Gethsemani, Ky: 5
Gethsemani, Ky: 6
Gethsemani, Ky: 7
Gethsemani, Ky: 8
Gethsemani, Ky: 9
Allegiance
At The Gates Of Aerea
Celebrating Giacometti
Come Dance In Baronies
Convergence Of The Many
Faction Du Muet
Fighters
Septentrion
Action And Non-action
Active Life
Advising The Prince
Apologies
Autumn Floods
The Breath Of Nature
Confucius And The Madman
Cracking The Safe
Cutting Up An Ox
Duke Hwan And The Wheelwright
The Empty Boat
The Fighting Cock
The Five Enemies
The Flight Of Lin Hui
Good Forturne
Great And Small
Great Knowledge
A Hat Salesman And A Capable Ruler
The Importance Of Being Toothless
In My End Is My Beginning
The Joy Of Fishes
Keng Sang Chu
Keng's Disciple
The Kingly Man
Lao Tzu's Wake
The Lost Pearl
Man Is Born In Tao
The Man Of Tao
The Man With One Foot And The Marsh Pheasant
Metamorphosis
The Need To Win
Owl And Phoenix
Perfect Joy
Starlight And Non-being
Symphony For A Sea Bird
Tao
Three Friends
The Tower Of The Spirit
The True Man
The Turtle
Two Kings And No-form
The Useless Tree
The Useless Tree
When A Hideous Man Becomes A Father
When Knowledge Went North
When The Shoe Fits
Where Is Tao?
Wholeness
The Woodcarver
Aegeus In Prison
Air
Dirty Souls
The Flower Of The Fruit
Great Prayer
Organ
Space Song
Sundown
The Three Sisters
The Truth
When You Point Your Finger
The Birth Of The Sun
Cup With A Jaguar For The Drinking Of Health
The Despairing Man Draws A Serpent
The Eye Is A Dog Howling In The Distance
Faces Of Girls Looking At Themselves In The River
The Jaguar Myth
Lament Of A Maiden For The Warrior's Death
Meditation Before An Ancient Poem
Nahoa Urn, For A Woman
Pain Is An Eagle Clinging To Your Name
The Secret Of The Burning Stars
Urn With A Political Profile
The World Is A Round Earthenware Plate
Written Next To A Blue Flower
Ut Queant
The Two Palm Trees
Psalm 132: A Modern Monastic Revision
A Practical Program For Monks (7)
Autumn
Chagall
The Cloud
Eurydice
Glass Orchard
The Glove
The Lake
Mosaic: St. Praxed's
Pillars
The Prisoner
Recipe
The Restoration Of The Pictures
The Ox Mountain Parable
1. Now You Are All Here You Might As Well Know This Is
Advent
Advice To A Young Prophet
After The Night Office - Gethsemani Abbey
All Of The Branches
All The Way Down I-5 I Hear The Wheels
The Anatomy Of Melancholy
And A Few More Cargo Songs
And So Goodbye To Cities
And So Goodbye To Cities
And The Children Of Birmingham
The Annunciation
Antipoem I
April
April 4th 1968
An Argument: Of The Passion Of Christ
Ariadne
Ariadne At The Labyrinth
Ash Wednesday
At This Precise Moment Of History
Aubade - Harlem
Aubade - The Annunciation
Aubade - The City
Aubade: Bermuda
Aubade: Lake Erie
A Baroque Gravure
Be My Defender
The Bees Love Grass
The Betrayal
The Biography
Birdcage Walk (1)
Birdcage Walk (2)
Birdcage Walk (3)
Birdcage Walk (4)
Birdcage Walk (5)
The Blessed Virgin Mary Compared To A Window
The Bombarded City
Bureaucrats: Diggers
The Burial Place Of Ibn Abbad
Cables To The Ace: 1
Cables To The Ace: 10
Cables To The Ace: 11
Cables To The Ace: 12
Cables To The Ace: 14
Cables To The Ace: 15
Cables To The Ace: 16
Cables To The Ace: 17
Cables To The Ace: 18
Cables To The Ace: 19
Cables To The Ace: 2
Cables To The Ace: 20a
Cables To The Ace: 20b
Cables To The Ace: 21
Cables To The Ace: 22
Cables To The Ace: 23
Cables To The Ace: 24
Cables To The Ace: 25
Cables To The Ace: 26
Cables To The Ace: 27
Cables To The Ace: 28
Cables To The Ace: 29
Cables To The Ace: 3
Cables To The Ace: 30
Cables To The Ace: 31
Cables To The Ace: 32
Cables To The Ace: 33
Cables To The Ace: 34
Cables To The Ace: 35
Cables To The Ace: 35
Cables To The Ace: 36
Cables To The Ace: 37
Cables To The Ace: 38
Cables To The Ace: 39
Cables To The Ace: 4
Cables To The Ace: 40
Cables To The Ace: 41
Cables To The Ace: 42
Cables To The Ace: 43
Cables To The Ace: 44
Cables To The Ace: 46
Cables To The Ace: 47
Cables To The Ace: 48
Cables To The Ace: 49
Cables To The Ace: 5
Cables To The Ace: 50
Cables To The Ace: 51
Cables To The Ace: 52
Cables To The Ace: 53
Cables To The Ace: 54
Cables To The Ace: 55
Cables To The Ace: 56
Cables To The Ace: 57
Cables To The Ace: 58
Cables To The Ace: 59
Cables To The Ace: 6
Cables To The Ace: 60
Cables To The Ace: 61
Cables To The Ace: 62
Cables To The Ace: 63
Cables To The Ace: 64
Cables To The Ace: 65
Cables To The Ace: 66
Cables To The Ace: 67
Cables To The Ace: 68
Cables To The Ace: 71
Cables To The Ace: 72
Cables To The Ace: 73
Cables To The Ace: 74
Cables To The Ace: 75
Cables To The Ace: 76
Cables To The Ace: 77
Cables To The Ace: 79
Cables To The Ace: 8
Cables To The Ace: 80
Cables To The Ace: 81
Cables To The Ace: 82
Cables To The Ace: 84
Cables To The Ace: 85
Cables To The Ace: 86
Cables To The Ace: 87
Cables To The Ace: 88
Cables To The Ace: 9
Calypso's Island
Cana
The Candlemas Procession
Canticle For The Blessed Virgin (1)
Canticle For The Blessed Virgin (2)
The Captives - A Psalm
Cargo Catechism
A Carol
Carol
Ce Xochitl: The Sign Of Flowers
Ceremony For Edward Dahlberg
Chant To Be Used In Processions Around A Site With Furnaces
Cheese
Chilam Balam (yucatan)
Christina
Christmas As To People
A Christmas Card
Christopher Columbus
The City After Noon
The City's Spring
Clairvaux (1)
Clairvaux (2)
Clairvaux (3)
Clairvaux Prison
A Clever Stratagem: Or, How To Handle Mystics
Comedy Card For A Serious Case
The Communion
Conversations
Crusoe
Darjeeling
The Dark Encounter
The Dark Morning
Day Six O'hare Telephane
Death
Desolation
Dialog With Mister Clapcott
Dirge
Dirge For A Town In France
Dirge For The City Of Miami
Dirge For The Proud World
Dirge For The World Joyce Died In
Dramas Of The Evening
A Dream At Arles On The Night Of The Mistral
The Dreaming Trader
Dry Places
Duns Scotus
Dzules (yucatan)
Early Blizzard
The Early Legend (1)
The Early Legend (2)
The Early Legend (3)
The Early Legend (4)
The Early Legend (5)
The Early Legend (6)
Early Mass
Earthquake
East With Ibn Battuta
East With Malinowski
Elegy For A Trappist
An Elegy For Ernest Hemingway
An Elegy For Five Old Ladies
Elegy For James Thurber
Elegy For The Monastery Barn
Elias - Variation On A Theme (1)
Elias - Variation On A Theme (2)
Elias - Variation On A Theme (3)
Elias - Variation On A Theme (4)
Epitaph For A Public Servant
Evening
The Evening Of The Visitation
Evening Prayer
Evening: Zero Weather
Exploits Of A Machine Age
Fable For A War
The Fall
Fall '66
The Fall Of Night
Famous Engines Support Type B Network
Figures For An Apocalypse (1)
Figures For An Apocalypse (2)
Figures For An Apocalypse (3)
Figures For An Apocalypse (4)
Figures For An Apocalypse (5)
Figures For An Apocalypse (6)
Figures For An Apocalypse (8)
Figures For An Apocalypse: 7
First Lesson About Man
Five Breaths Pray In Me: Sun Moon
The Five Virgins
The Flight Into Egypt
For My Brother: Reported Missing In Action, 1943
For The Spanish Poet Miguel Hernandez
Freedom As Experience
From The 2nd Chapter Of A Verse History Of The World
From The Legend Of St. Clement
Fugitive
Ghost Dance
Ghost Dance: Prologue
Gloss On The Sin If Ixion
God Said They Did Not Hear My Children
Grace's House
The Great Men Of Former Times
The Greek Women
The Guns Of Fort Knox
Hare's Message (hottentot)
The Harmonies Of Excess
Hellow Arnold Hellow Roger Hello Isidore
The Holy Child's Song
Holy Communion: The City
The Holy Sacrament Of The Altar
Hopeless And Felons
The House Of Gaiphas
How Long We Wait
How To Entery A Big City (1)
How To Entery A Big City (2)
How To Entery A Big City (3)
How To Entery A Big City (4)
How To Entery A Big City (5)
Hrishikesa, Destoyer Of Titans, Ogres And Canailles
Hymn For The Feast Of Duns Scotus
Hymn Of Not Much Praise For New York City
Hymn To Commerce
Hymns Of Lograire
I Believe In Love
I Have Called You
Ibn Abbad Described By A Friend
The Image Of True Lovers' Death
In Memory Of The Spanish Poet Federico Garcia Lorca
In Silence
In The Rain And The Sun
An Invocation To St. Lucy
Iphigenia: Politics
It Would Be Wrong To Let One Man
Je Crois En L'amour
John The Volcano
Kandy Express
Kane Relief Expedition
King Solomon: My Master And The Imbeciles
La Comparsa En Oriente
La Salette
The Ladies Of Tlatilco
Lament For Javier Heraud
The Landfall
Landscape (1)
Landscape (2)
Landscape: Wheatfields
A Latter To America
Le Secret
The Legacy Of Herakleitos
Lent
Lent In A Year Of War
Les Cinq Vierges
Letter To A Sufi Who Has Abandoned Surism To Study Lay
A Letter To My Friends
Letter To One Who Has Abandoned The Way
Letters To Che: Canto Bilingue
Like Ilium
The Lion
Litany
Litany
Litany
Long Enough
The Lord Is Good
Love Winter When The Plant Says Nothing
Lubnan
Macarius And The Pony
Macarius The Younger (1)
Macarius The Younger (2)
Macarius The Younger (3)
The Man In The Wind
Man The Master
Marks And Numbers
Merlin And The Deer
Message To Be Inscribed On Mark Van Doren's Hamilton Medal
The Messenger
A Messenger From The Horizon
Messias
Miami You Are About To Be Surprised
Moment Of Truth
The Moon Smiles Like A Queen
The Moslems' Angel Of Death
Mothers You Have Met Before Still Need You
A Mysterious Song In The Spring Of The Year
Natural History
Never Call A Babysitter In A Thunderstorm
New Ribbon (1)
New Ribbon (2)
New Ribbon (3)
New Ribbon (4)
News From The School At Chartres
The Night Of Destiny
The Night Train
Night-flowering Cactus
Nocturne
Nombril Walketh On The Loam
A Note In Honor Of Machiavelli
Notes For A New Liturgy
O Cross, More Splendid Than All The Stars
O Sweet Irrational Worship
Ode To The Present Century
The Ohio River - Louisville
The Ointment
Old
On A Day In August
On The Anniversary Of My Baptism
The Oracle
Origen
Original Sin
The Originators
Paper Cranes
The Peril
The Philosophers
Picture Of A Black Child With A White Doll
A Picture Of Lee Ying
Pilgrim's Song
Place Names
Planet Over Eastern Parkway
Plessy Vs Ferguson: Theme And Variations
Poem
Poem
Poem
Poem In The Rain And The Sun
Poem: 1939
The Poet, To His Book
A Practical Program For Monks (1)
A Practical Program For Monks (2)
A Practical Program For Monks (3)
A Practical Program For Monks (4)
A Practical Program For Monks (5)
A Practical Program For Monks (6)
Prayer And Sermon Of Ibn Abbad
A Prayer Of Thanksgiving Written For Victor Hammer
Prayer To Saint Anatole
A Prelude: For The Feast Of St. Agnes
A Prelude: For The Feast Of St. Agnes
The Pride Of The Dead
Prologo
Prologue: The Endless Inscription
Prophet
Proverbs
A Psalm
Public Affairs
The Quickening Of St. John The Baptist
Rahab's House
The Ranters And Their Pleads
The Reader
Reading Translated Poets, Feb 1
Reduced To This
The Regret
A Responsory
A Responsory, 1948
Rievaulx: St. Ailred
Rilke's Epitaph
Roar Of Red Wood Racer Eats Field
A Round And A Hope For Smithgirls
Sacred Heart (2)
Saint Jason
The Secret
Secular Signs
Seneca
Senescente Mundo, When The Hot Globe
Seven Archiac Images
Sewende
The Silver Bird Is E Backward In Cool Pond Water
Sincerity
The Snare
Solemn Music
Solitary Life
Some Bloody Mutiny Opens Up Our Earth
Song
Song
Song
Song
Song
A Song
Song For Nobody
Song For Our Lady Of Cobre
Song For The Blessed Sacrament
Song For The Death Of Averroes
The Song Of The Traveller
Song: Contemplation
A Song: Sensation Time At The Home
Songs
Songs Of Experience; India, One
The Sowing Of Meaniongs
The Sponge Full Of Vinegar
Sports Without Blood - A Letter To Dylan Thomas (1948) (1)
Sports Without Blood - A Letter To Dylan Thomas (1948) (2)
Sports Without Blood - A Letter To Dylan Thomas (1948) (3)
Sports Without Blood - A Letter To Dylan Thomas (1948) (4)
Spring Storm
Spring: Monastery Farm
St. Agnes: A Responsory
St. Alberic
St. Jerome
St. John Baptist (1)
St. John Baptist (2)
St. John Baptist (3)
St. John's Night
St. Maedoc
St. Malachy
St. Paul
St. Paul The Hermit
St. Thomas Aquinas
The Storm At Night
Stranger
The Strife Between The Poet And Ambition
Submerged Dragon
Sundown
Then From Tomorrow
Theory Of Prayer
There Has To Be A Jail For Ladies
There Is A Little Ceremony To Be Performed
There Is A Way To Glory
These Years A Winter
Things And People Goodbye
Thonga Lament (africa)
Three Postcards From The Monastery (1)
Three Postcards From The Monastery (2)
Three Postcards From The Monastery (3)
Tibud Maclay Came From The Moon In A White Ship
To A Novice
To A Novice
To A Novice
To A Severe Nun
To Alfonso Cortes
To Belong To Allah
To The Immaculate Virgin, On A Winter Night
Tonight There Is A Showing Of Champion Lights
Tower Of Babel
The Transformation: For The Sacred Heart
The Trappist Abbey: Matins
The Trappist Cemetery - Gethsemani
Trappists, Working
Tropics
A Tune For Festive Dances In The Nineteen Sixties
Two British Airmen
Two States Of Prayer
The Victory
The Vine
Vital Imperatives For Chester
Weep Not. Talelo
Welcome
What Are The Marks Of The Enemy?
What Do You Think When It Rains Blood
What Is Beyond Reproof
What Troubles I Have Seen In Birdlegged Spring
When Class Was In The Garden Ot Greylands
When In The Soul Of The Seren Disciple
Whether There Is Enjoyment In Bitterness
A Whitsun Canticle
Why I Have A Wet Footprint On Top Of My Mind
Why Some Look Up To Planets And Heroes
The Widow Of Naim
Will A Narrow Lane
Winter Afternoon
The Winter's Night
Wisdom
With The World In My Blood Stream
The Word - A Responsory
Butterfly
I Move That We Adjourne The Meeting
The Imperfect Lover
Mummies
Paradise Of Squares
Poetry Ends With Me
Soda Fountains
What The Deceased Had To Say About Himself
The Keeper Of The Flocks (1)
The Keeper Of The Flocks (10)
The Keeper Of The Flocks (11)
The Keeper Of The Flocks (12)
The Keeper Of The Flocks (2)
The Keeper Of The Flocks (3)
The Keeper Of The Flocks (4)
The Keeper Of The Flocks (5)
The Keeper Of The Flocks (6)
The Keeper Of The Flocks (7)
The Keeper Of The Flocks (8)
The Keeper Of The Flocks (9)
A Solis Ortus Cardine
The Idol Of Sarapis
The Logos Our Teacher
The New Song
Priests Of The Old Gods
Soldiers Of Peace
Zeus Is Dead
The Gloria In Excelsis
Prose In Advent Time
Tomb Cover Of Iman Riza
Anger
Black Stone On Top Of A White Stone
Estais Meurtos
Peace, The Wasp, The Bung, The Hillsides
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1048 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation (January 1, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811207692
• ISBN-13: 978-0811207690
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,015,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is arguably the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, has millions of copies and has been translated into over fifteen languages. He wrote over sixty other books and hundreds of poems and articles on topics ranging from monastic spirituality to civil rights, nonviolence, and the nuclear arms race.

After a rambunctious youth and adolescence, Merton converted to Roman Catholicism and entered the Abbey of Gethsemani, a community of monks belonging to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), the most ascetic Roman Catholic monastic order.

The twenty-seven years he spent in Gethsemani brought about profound changes in his self-understanding. This ongoing conversion impelled him into the political arena, where he became, according to Daniel Berrigan, the conscience of the peace movement of the 1960's. Referring to race and peace as the two most urgent issues of our time, Merton was a strong supporter of the nonviolent civil rights movement, which he called "certainly the greatest example of Christian faith in action in the social history of the United States." For his social activism Merton endured severe criticism, from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who assailed his political writings as unbecoming of a monk.

During his last years, he became deeply interested in Asian religions, particularly Zen Buddhism, and in promoting East-West dialogue. After several meetings with Merton during the American monk's trip to the Far East in 1968, the Dali Lama praised him as having a more profound understanding of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known. It was during this trip to a conference on East-West monastic dialogue that Merton died, in Bangkok on December 10, 1968, the victim of an accidental electrocution. The date marked the twenty-seventh anniversary of his entrance to Gethsemani.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must for the Merton Fan, May 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

Although a mystic and an intellectual, Merton shines as a poet as well. Rarely spoken of, his poetry reflects his simple and eloquent beliefs regarding God. To read his poetry is to glimpse a bit of the Truth that he sought to explain.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Life as a Picaresque Symphony, February 10, 2007

By 

Billyjack D'Urberville (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

This is a book for all seasons. It chronicles Merton's poetic career from start to finish, which close up can seem to change and veer abruptly. From the distance of this chronicle it looks more like the regular flow of those low domed hills his monastery calls home, the Kentucky knobs. Working in an astonishing variety of modes and moods, the care and control of Merton's poetic output is consistent and always thoughtful, respectful of the reader.

Merton started recording his haunted poetic impressions of the modern world in the years at Columbia just leading up to his conversion. A sample is collected here, leading up to a struggle with a view of a wintry Lent which, developed in a slightly different vein, becomes "Lent in a Year of War," the keynote to his first published set, Thirty Poems. The resurrection of the fragment before the first book gives an astonishing window on Merton the man, the poet, the monk, the later social critic and protester: they were all the same guy, and they were there from day one. He did not "turn from the world" then later "turn to it" as the editors of his complete journals suggest. He never left it and carried its issues with him more deeply into ground, as it were, where they ripened over time. Lent is an "evening of sinless murders" the young man annouces, an image fusing the precise matrix in the modern world that he set his spiritual-poetic career against, with some note of active determination -- not passivity.

There are four published sets between 1944 and 1949. They still constitute a vast ground for explication and sensitive critical commentary, for which there is hardly room in a review. However, these four sets are rich and classically constructed poems which even, without the rest of the book, would make the short list for anybody's desert island. Now the sounds and sights and prayers of monastic days fuse with that long and bottomless meditation on the world and time that Merton craved, and that a career in teaching with a Columbia degree could not have begun to satisfy -- or at least not without deadly struggle -- as anyone who works in the world must know. But the key thing again is religious imagery not as a shelter or a denial or a flight, but as a full frontal explication of the issues that drove this poet "underground," so to speak. In "Ode to the Present Century" it is modern man who is crucified, demonically on his own most cherished petards:

How have you hammered all your senses into curses,
Forever twisting in your memory
The nails of sensuality and death.

An eight year hiatus follows, ending with the transitional The Strange Islands in 1957. Then the Original Child Bomb in 1962, and the explosion of his own poetic output that followed right up to Merton's accidental death at age 53 in 1968. These poems are more generally known, and take on many contemporary issues -- still burning -- with both hands in any mode Merton can get ahold of. They are wild and some of them wildly funny. Merton is about the funniest poet I know so I hardly care who considers him "great" or "major"; I bought this book on publication in 1977 and it comes off my shelf at least as frequently as any other I own. For just that reason: this meditative priest always has exactly what I need, somewhere. It is uncannily as if the book knows me, and I gather many others have had this experience with the writer. It makes him, to an odd degree, a sort of cult writer; among his continuing circle he is probably sighted about as frequently as Elvis. Funny thing, that man from Tennessee and this born again Kentuckian oddly had their fingers on key synapses in this time of flux, and hearty humor grafted upon dead seriousness from the heart was central in both -- one a crooner of ballads and another a bardic scholar. Merton, of course, favored Dylan -- not really all too funny in those days, either, but when you realize he got out of Gethsemani one night to laugh uproariously at "What's New Pussycat" you will be ready for the poet's wild finale, surreal and outrageous. He even had time to look back, as evidenced by a late uncollected poem, "All the Way Down," in which he goes "down/Into the cavern" to the bottom of the sea, "lower/Than Jonas," lower than any diamond mine -- "I thought I was the devil/He was no deeper down/Than me" -- -- But wait:

And when they thought
That I was gone forever
That I was all the way
In hell
I got right back into my body
And came back out
And rang my bell.

Simply, there is no room to signal here the riches of Merton's grand finale of bell-ringing. The whole book stands there, finally, like a picaresque symphony from an incredibly meditated modern life. Cables to the Ace and The Geography of Lograire, especially, are two astonishing modernist sets that have never gotten appropriate recognition. There are translations, silliness, poems in other languages, "antipoems," protests and rubics for subversive rites, encounters with the East, and more. And always, however surrealistically sometimes set in a mad lost crowd, there always remains the deepest vein Merton mined in his own "dark hole" from the start: the horror point where modern man is confronted with the quite real and still bleeding figure of Christ crucified, walking right up to him.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Seems Obscure, October 3, 2009

By 

David R. Cavall "David Cavall" (North Carolina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

I feel almost guilty writing this because I truly love Thomas Merton and own many of his books,but,I find much of his poetry obscure and difficult to understand. I wish there was something available,a type of guide that would aid in understanding his poems.