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NORRIS-MERTON Oct-18-2005 (780 words) xxxn
Author relishes chance to introduce 'new' poetry by Merton
By Lisa Dahm
Catholic News Service
HONOLULU (CNS) -- It isn't often that the opportunity comes along to introduce a new selection of poems by Thomas Merton. For Kathleen Norris, a well-known poet and spirituality author herself, the once-in-a-lifetime chance was one she couldn't refuse.
The selection is a just-released 235-page softcover book that compiles the famous Trappist monk's poetry from the mid-1940s to his death. Titled "In the Dark Before Dawn: New Selected Poems of Thomas Merton," it is published by New Directions and edited by Lynn R. Szabo.
In the book's five-and-a-half-page introduction, "I said that, like Walt Whitman, he (Merton) contained multitudes," Norris said. "Here is a guy who spent a good part of his life in a monastery, but his experience of human life is so broad and vast that he writes about many different things in many different voices."
Merton, born in 1915, became a Trappist monk in 1941 and died in 1968 of electrocution in Thailand. A well-known author and poet, his most famous work is his autobiography, "The Seven Storey Mountain." His other books include "Seeds of Contemplation" and "Thoughts in Solitude."
The 119 poems in this new volume are categorized into eight themes from "poems from the monastery" to "being human."
Norris received a fax message around the beginning of last year asking her if she would write the book's foreword. Despite her frenetic schedule, she instantly said yes. "I said, 'I don't need another job but this is a job I have to do,'" she recalled.
The "In the Dark Before Dawn" compilation is unique, Norris said, because many of the poems have either never been published or have been published only in limited editions of less than 100 copies.
Though not the total collection, "it is probably the best comprehensive volume of his poetry that we are ever likely to have just because a lot of the later material was included," Norris said.
The poems in the volume also are "a lot of fun to read out loud," even for people who "think they don't like poetry -- that it is kind of dead on the page," she said.
"When you read a poem out loud, or hear it read out loud, that is when you really appreciate it," Norris said.
Some of the poems are musical and light -- about psalms and love and joy -- while others are political, giving a stark view of American culture, war, racism and atomic bombs. He also writes about people like Ernest Hemingway, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rainer Maria Rilke.
"He is actually a very good political writer when he is writing about spiritual matters," Norris said. "He is really warning us about the kind of world that we are creating."
Some selections reflect the time Merton spent in Asia and his encounters with Buddhism. At least half are taken from his day-to-day experience as a Trappist priest.
"He will write about the monastic experience and make it quite accessible for someone who may have never been in a monastery," Norris said.
The book also contains love poems Merton wrote for a nurse who cared for him during a hospital stay.
"He was in love with the Catholic Church and he was in love with the monastery. He was in love with a lot of things," Norris said, "but to absolutely fall like a teenager for someone, he had never done."
Norris called the poems "giddy" and "almost adolescent in tone. But it is adolescent emotion in the hands of a very gifted and mature writer," she said. "So it is not like reading a 15-year-old's version of 15-year-old love. It is really a treat."
Norris said the experience humbled him and "in the end probably made him a better monk."
Though the poems were not published for years for fear of scandal, she said, "I don't really think there is anything in there that is scandalous. They are beautiful love poems."
Norris finds Merton's reflections on everyday monastic life often humorous and always "refreshing."
"It is a useful book in that it humanizes monastic people," she said. "He has such a great sense of humor. There are so many funny lines and poems in here. He's making fun of himself and not taking himself too seriously."
Norris' own works include "The Cloister Walk," "Dakota: A Spiritual Geography," "Meditations on Mary," "Little Girls in Church," "Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith" and "The Holy Twins."
She first moved to Hawaii with her parents at age 11 and has lived in Vermont, New York and South Dakota before returning to live in Hawaii full time following the recent death of her husband, David Dwyer.
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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