Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Trappist monk and priest is recognized as one of the major spiritual fathers of our times. His longing for silence and solitude, his contemplative vision, his engagement with need for world peace through inner life of the spirit, his journey across religious traditions, cultures and disciplines, make him a man for all times but especially for our own. Thomas Merton expressed this vision in his poetry, novels, essays, devotionals, and autobiographical writings.

Statistical Analysis of Merton's Marian Poems

We can make some remarks about the distribution and frequency of Merton's poems. First, lets take a look at the distribution of Merton's Marian poems as they relate to the years of his life. Between1940-1949, Merton wrote 25 poems which have a Marian content or theme. Between 1950-1959, Merton wrote 1 poem that has Marian aspects. Between 1960 and 1968, Merton wrote 5 poems that have Marian aspects. The last poem that Merton wrote (that has Marian aspects) is called Queen's Tunnel . Now, lets take a look at the frequency of Merton's poems per year.  The most poems that Merton ever wrote about Mary in a year was eight, which he did twice. He wrote 8 poems in 1944 and 1946 which have Marian aspects. In 1947, Merton wrote 5 poems that have Marian aspects. This means that 21 of the 29 poems that he wrote (which have Marian aspects) were written in a time span of four years. We can refer to 10 of the 29 poems as "totally" Marian. Eight of the ten poems were written in the 1940's: La Comparsa En Oriente, Song for Our Lady of Cobre, The Evening of the Visitation, The Blessed Virgin Mary Compared to a Window, Aubade: The Annunciation, La Salette, Canticle for the Blessed Virgin, and To the Immaculate Virgin on a Winter Night. The two exceptions are The Annunciation (which Merton wrote in 1957) and Hagia Sophia (which Merton wrote in 1963). Conclusion:We can conclude from this evidence that the mid 1940's were the time span in which Merton most felt moved to praise Mary through the art form of poetry.

The Mary Page has gathered the Marian poetry written by Merton. We present to you this collection of poems honoring the Virgin Mary written by Thomas Merton.

Thomas Merton in Pictures

This collection of Merton poetry and illustrations was assembled with these sources:

Forest, James H. Thomas Merton: A Pictorial Biography. New York: Paulist Press, 1980.
Merton, Thomas. The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton. New York: New Directions,
1977.
Merton, Thomas. Emblems of a Season of Fury. New York: New Directions, 1963.
Merton, Thomas. Selected Poems of Thomas Merton. New York: New Directions, 1967.
Mott, Michael. The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
Pennington, M. Basil. A Retreat with Thomas Merton. Warwick, New Jersey: Amity House, 1988.
Shannon, William H. Silent Lamp: The Thomas Merton Story. New York: Crossroad, 1992.

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This page, maintained by The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute, was last Modified January 29, 1999 by J.C. Tierney. Please send any comments to ROTEN@data.lib.udayton.edu.

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