In the poem Merton explains the difference between two spiritual words that have long been problematic: loneliness versus solitude. Almost all commentators reject the first and praise the second. In this poem Merton perceptively differs and explains that they are not incompatible nor should one of them be treated as good and the other bad. Rather, each word represents a stage of being by oneself and the process is for a person to move from one to the other—to be led by one into the other. The opening stanza of the poem is a bit unusual, causal perhaps, at least for Merton; he personifies the word solitude bestowing on it the vocation of encouraging teacher.

Stanza one reads as follows.

If you seek a heavenly light
I, Solitude, am your professor!

Stanza two briefly describes what solitude will accomplish: raise new suns in your mornings and openings windows to your world. However, it is in the third stanza that Merton makes a connection between the two. The first two verses read…

When I, loneliness, give my special signal
Follow my silence, follow where I beckon!

Do not tarry, do not fret; loneliness will lead the reader into solitude. This is a startling observation by Merton; loneliness is not static; through a door, down a path, or a roadway to another state of understanding. It is not a stubborn prison; there are journeys to take. There is the destination of contemplation in solitude; the empty night, the pilgrim moon.

Another verse reads, “I am the appointed hour.” Here are the last two lines stanza four.

The "now" that cuts
Time like a blade.

It would be very easy to assume that Merton is using the phrase “the appointed hour” in reference to William Somerset Maughan’s story of “death speaking” which John O’Hara uses as the epigraph in his novel, Appointment in Samarra. Merton is, after all, very well read. In a letter to Daniel Berrigan on November 22, 1962 Merton writes that “I will tell them you are Scipio, Cicero, John O'Hara and twenty-five other people, including Berrigan.” So, maybe O’Hara has made his way onto Merton’s reading list. The “now” (in quotation marks, no less) may be read as a reflection on death wherein time is cut forever.

Merton probably experienced sufficient moments of loneliness that he converted into moments of solitude. His duel vocations of cloistered Trappist and professional writer tended to include moments of being alone and they sculptured his character. He knew that the community of monks cared about him and relied on them. He knew his writing meant he cared about others and his readers understood this. One of the telltale signs of loneliness is the enhanced feeling of isolation. Merton, and the other monks, constantly reminded themselves that they lived a community, a community with purpose; they worked together, they worshipped together, and at meals they read together—that is, the reader, a lector, read to all of them gathered together.

On the receiving end he knew other writers and their work encouraged him; one, in particular stands out—Ernest Hemingway.

Merton admired Hemingway for many reasons—solitude may have been one of them.

When the Nobel committee awarded Ernest Hemingway the prize for literature the the work they cited as emblematic of man alone against nature and fate was The Old Man and the Sea. Commentators have poured over the meaning and implications of this novella but the overriding scene in this work is that one man is alone in a boat at sea.

In his statement to the Swedish Academy (Hemingway did not attend the ceremony) on his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature Hemingway noted that “Writing, at its best, is a lonely life…He does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity.” Hemingway repeated this thought in a conversation; “You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you.” 1 In an interview for the Paris Review2 Hemingway remarked that “The further you go in writing the more alone you are.”

What a difference it might have been for Hemingway if he had commented on writing and used the word “solitude.” It is high praise to be honored by in death, even suicide. Merton wrote an emotional elegy defending Hemingway before God—he wrote;

“Now for the first time on the night of you death your name is mentioned in convents…”

The word “figures” probably means “images” or scenes” of the last days of creation.

In Section IV Merton includes an epigraph from the book of Revelation, sometimes called The Apocalypse. The epigraph is “Cf. Apoc. XIV, 14.”, so Merton is asking the reader to compare the 14th verse of the 14th chapter of the book of the Apocalypse with this section of the poem. Here is that verse from the Douay-Rheims translation.

And I looked, and behold a white cloud: and upon the cloud one sitting like to the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

And here are Merton’s first four verses.

Look in the night, look, look in the night:
Heaven stands open like a little temple,
With a man in the door
Having a sickle in his hand.

A reader might think that Merton, by inviting us to compare Apoc. XIV, 14 to his poem, that the verses might have a lot in common but that is not the case except for the sickle. John’s version occurs during the day while Merton’s version is at night. A “little temple” seems out of place; why not a large or glorious temple. The man possesses no rank. Should the reader assume that he is the “Son of Man?”

Most of the second stanza centers around the sickle; its construction, shape, and how the man wields it. Stanzas three and five continue with more descriptions of the sickle but stanza four draws our attention to some mysterious soldiers.

...The men on the red horses wait with guns
Among the blue world's burning brim!     

Contemporary American readers will probably succumb to the “red” and “blue” designations of present politics but, since this poem emerges from the post World War II era, the reference is probably to the Soviet Union. The sudden switch to the evils of that country (evil empire with a red flag, hammer and a sickle) suggests Merton may have been experimenting with imbuing a militaristic tone to the poem and the implication that that communism will bring on the end of the world but the final stanza leads in yet another direction, the trumpet player.

As for the playing of the trumpet to usher in the apocalypse George Frideric Handel has already cornered the market on his vision of the return of the Messiah.

As an aside, although John does not invite his readers to compare his text with any scriptural text, it is curious to note that John’s text is quite similar to two verses of the Book of Daniel. Here is Daniel 7:13-14.

I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.

In addition, John may also have been familiar with the letter that Mark wrote to his friend Theophilus.

“You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” — Mark 14:62

Contemporary commentators at the time of publication expressed their misgivings about this Merton collection. Horace Gregory of the New York Times remarked that “Figures for an Apocalypse is not as fresh as and seems less enduring than his Thirty Poems.”1

Paul E. Brewer (at Loyola University of Chicago) commented that many of the poems in this collection “are marred by the rhetorical habit of exclamation, exhortation, and pious questionings…” 2 Brewer also notes the excessive use of “like” and “as” in these poems which slow the reader. In this section (IV) of the poem there are five such usages. In the last line of the poem the reader discovers that there is a first person narrator with an exclamation point to exhort the reader.

And bites my soul with lightnings live as steel!

Perhaps this viewpoint would have created a sense of engagement if it had been placed in the beginning.

In his autobiography (SSM) Merton describes his first encounter with her when she was delivering a speech excoriating communism and mesmerizing a large group of nuns, priests and laity. Merton, in a single sentence paragraph, recognizes her authority: “I realized it was the Baroness.”1 And the pedigree of the Baroness in Roman Catholicism continues; she may be referred to as a “Servant of God.”2

More than two decades later Merton wrote another poem during the struggle for civil rights. Here is a link to a short essay on that poem: A Black (Negro) girl.

Merton’s concern for the poor may have matured when he volunteered at Friendship House; it certainly endured throughout his life. It is in Merton’s poetry that the reader understands his fulfillment of the injunction of Jesus, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,…Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,…”

The poem is an aubade but Merton, like many poets who write aubades, deviates slightly from what readers expected from its French etymology; “a poem at dawn when lovers depart.”

Here is the first verse of the poem Aubade: Harlem.

 Across the cages of the keyless aviaries... 

The American reader may hesitate a bit with the word “aviaries” as it implies there is a keeper of birds; an owner, a master. North America, with its harsh winters, did not develop the hobby of personal aviaries as much as Great Britain and the low-land countries of Europe did. Merton, born in France, spent a large portion of his youth in Europe and understood the culture of capturing and caging birds. Describing the aviaries with the word “keyless” rather than “locked” creates an ominous start to the poem; not only locked but keyless, and unable to leave. The first verse entices the reader with its alliteration: the double “s” sound combined with the letters “c” and “k.”

Here Merton keeps to the traditional structures of the aubade. The reader should assume that this first line occurs at dawn.

The second verse, with the word “gallows,” confirms the gloom of the first verse.

The lines and wires, the gallows of the broken kites.   

The lines and wires stretched among the telephone poles, and flying kites in New York City was not very successful for children. Some commentators on this poem suggest that Merton on one of his morning visits to the Baroness at her home in Friendship House, where she lived and worked with the poor, witnessed some children and their dead kites among the wires. Since Merton gave the poem the title “Aubade” he may be reminiscing about his leaving a part of New York City that he loved and using aubade in an another sense. In October of 1941 he wrote to the Baroness from St. Bonaventure College where he was teaching. At that time perhaps Merton still thought it would be possible to join her in her apostolate in Harlem.

Thanks very much for letting me stand around Friendship House…I hope I can do that more often.3

The middle sections of the poem are a recitation of the dilemmas of the poor: sunlight, read in the sense of heat beating on humanity, only promises hard work at poor pay, the neglect of the “white men” and their wives, with Pontius Pilate as the principle metaphor of disinterest and detachment from the ills of those who are kept in the aviaries. Merton contrasts this neglect with the “four flowers of blood” in the crucifixion of Jesus. Here is the last line of stanza three.

Four flowers of blood have nailed Him to the walls of Harlem.

The last stanza is the first stanza repeated, and unlike a traditional aubade where time in the poem is linear, this may represent the repetition of repression which continues daily. Frequently the technique of repetition implies circular time; Merton may be noting how these injustices are repeated in a “cycle of pain.”4

The fifth line of the first stanza starts…

Soon, in the sterile jungles…

This image had gained some prominence in American literature. One of its first incarnations included Upton Sinclair’s novel simply titled The Jungle (1906).

During the late 40s and early 50s three novels were published: The Concrete Jungle (1947) by David Whitelaw with the setting in London, The Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett (1949) with a mid-western city flavor, and The Blackboard Jungle by Evan Hunter with the setting in New York City. 5

Buried in the poetry of Thomas Merton is the fragment of a unpublished poem titled God Said, “They Did Not Hear...” The first two verses are…

The did not hear my children
singing in the jungle

The question of whether the poetry of Thomas Merton is still spiritually relevant in our turbulent times is no longer debatable.

Now, the fine print. The average open rate for Substack emails is about 40% with, as the pollsters say, a margin of error. So, actual readers is about 1,600 (that means you! ) and those who read the entire essay—well, who knows.

The subscriber list includes readers from fifty states, eighty countries (mostly English speaking) but all readers can, when they read these essays, consider themselves connected to people they don’t even know.

I thank everyone. Almost universally, readers on Substack are informed and thoughtful and we writers must remember that there are many, so many, insightful articles to read.

“We are all one silence, and a diversity of voices.”
—Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

We have found our Christ, our August
Here in the zero days before Lent

The poem diverges from Merton’s usual style: one easy Latin expression (Ave Marias), no obscure saints, no mythological animals, and no Greek or Roman deities. The poem notes the bulls are safe.

And the whole herd is home in the long barn.

How pleasant to read. Words with the vowel “o.” Is this subconsciously the “zero” temperature? Merton observes the monks dealing with the cold.

The brothers come, with hoods about their faces,

The hoods here are more for protection from the wind rather than promoting modesty of the eyes. They lug buckets of feed and “axes under their arms” and “rosaries between their bleeding fingers.” Merton implies that he is already at the barn and that the monks are arriving and he observes them. He may have been at the barn sooner. It suggests he might be living at the Hermitage but his desire to be a hermit occurs much later. Merton often notices nature is engaged in singing; it this poem nature is muted.

There is no bird-song there, no hare's track
No badger working in the russet grass:
All the bare fields are silent as eternity.

After the afternoon feeding the community returns to chant Vespers.

Bowing our shoulders in the church's shadow,...

What shall the reader make of this turbulent tranquility? Is it merely a snapshot of the Benedictine motto “Ora et labora?” In the immediate aftermath of World War II in 1947, when Merton wrote the poem, many farms in the United States after the war had to adjust for financial independence. For the Trappists, managing a farm with well fed bulls went a long way toward the goal of remaining solvent.

Poems praising work don’t seem as attractive as other genres. One of the more famous American poems to glorify and honor labor is I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman.2 While it is a bit outdated with regard to present day jobs (shoemaker, hatter), the spirit of doing valuable work is still present. Here is the section where Whitman lauds the workers.

The carpenter singing his as he measures 
    his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready 
    for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him 
    in his boat, the deckhand singing on 
    the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his 
    bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s 
    on his way in the morning, or at noon 
    intermission or at sundown,

The reader might think differently but Whitman is one poet Merton rarely mentions. How could he miss one of the premier American poets? Bill Kock notes a few coincidences3 between Merton and Whitman; both lived on Long Island and both meditated on Indian spirituality, but Merton himself doesn’t comment on Whitman’s poetry or theology. So many poets, so little time.

Imagine Merton reading Whitman; he might have liked these verses from section nine of Leaves of Grass. The word “mow” as used here by Whitman as a noun is the part of a barn where the hay is stored. “Intertinged” is probably a variant of “intermingled.”

The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready; 
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon; 
The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged; 
The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow.

Here is the list of poems and their authors. In this essay the third poem is published with my commentary.

First Place: “Old Fruit” by Deanna Christiansen
Second Place: “wheelbarrow red” by Tim Ornelas
Third Place: “God Left Them What They Desired” by Walter Canter

God Left Them What They Desire
—Walter Canter

Make peace, and see my property value increase.
Cry peace, so I can cease these virtuous values.
Practical intellect and its introspective interests
earn no interest and interest me less than trusting
my neighbor–that violent dweller next door,
the warmonger, the sewer of discord
who seeks gains from his gun manufacturing investments,
whose testaments provoke and stoke rage
from the simple folk, such as myself, who
want only the advantages of non-violent
economic growth, the status quo of devouring
the earth and living out liberty. Happiness
is being on the right end of exploitation,
and peace has no fear of retaliation.
Freedom owns an asset signaling expansion,
conquering and possessing without interruption.
Peace soothes the hunger in my disquiet soul, so
ray for peace, pray it fast, pray its compensation
covers the gambles and grumbles of the past.
Victory, seeking.
above all else,
me. And let peace be my war.

Walter Canter

lives in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Canter is a Presbyterian Pastor and has a Doctor of Ministry degree in Creative Writing and Public Theology from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

His writing has been published by The Presbyterian Outlook and The Clerestory and he publishes here on Substack at Walter Writes Words.

About this contest he wrote that while reading Merton he reflected about the people who are “using the language of peace in order to defend the profitable practice of a violent status quo.”

Commentary

A poem using irony or satire or both to explain the vices of war challenges even the best poets. Canter sustains his combination of satire and irony in this poem which mocks the man who seeks peace for profit. One judge noted that the narrator is “largely a character of such a speaker.” Canter deftly sustains this ironic judgment throughout the poem with several insightful verses: “Happiness is being on the right end of exploitation.” Some readers might want a definitive rejection of this analysis beyond the irony. The title is a thoughtful start. Perhaps a couplet at the end.

Speaking of feedback I posted a poem about 9/12 and the Canadian response after 9/11. If you missed it it, this the link. Poem For Canada Thanks for the “likes.” They are really for Canada.

Here is the list of poems and their authors. In this essay the second poem is published and discussed. The first poem can be read here. Winning Poem

In the next essay another poem will be published.

First Place: “Old Fruit” by Deanna Christiansen
Second Place: “wheelbarrow red” by Tim Ornelas
Third Place: “God Left Them What They Desired” by Walter Canter

wheelbarrow red
— Tim Ornelas

wheelbarrow red
the world has been colored
a dirty wheelbarrow red
by the hands and voices
of angry women and men,
the lines of rusted tanks
and recently turned over clay graves
from South Sudan to eastern Ukraine–
a dark, metal red, the living embers
of terror breathing the air of rage,
rage, rage–

we shake, we scream, we convince
each other to kill– in the name
of God– the evil of those unlike
us, recklessly ignoring the evil within.
to protect us from them we’ll become
killing machines, drinking
the sweet red Kool-Aid of revenge,
or preemptive destruction,
letting the lies drip our chins,
while we salute our gods of self-
preservation, our modern Mars,
our AK-47s, K-Bars, and Glocks,

forever speaking of courage, of being
brave, of justice, of deserved pain –
all because we are afraid
to die, to give ourselves away,
to find life in the kenotic love
of a wounded God.

Tim Ornelas

lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and attends Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC). He is studying English as an undergraduate student. His poetry has been published in the Clay Jar Review, a Christian literary journal, in 2024, and in the Copper Quill, a publication of HACC in 2026. He writes on Substack; the link is Tim Ornelas.

About this contest he writes that I “a deep sense of resonance with Thomas Merton's essay” and “I have been working on poems of this nature” for a possible chapbook.

Commentary

The title of this poem is an obvious reference to the importance of the red wheelbarrow described by William Carlos Williams upon which so much depends. The first stanza is exceptionally strong and encompasses the universality of our present wars. Its contrary use, from Williams’s use, of the color “red” is enticing.

While Williams’s poem is short, too short perhaps, this poem may be too long. One judge commented on the shift between the first and second stanzas; the poem begins “quite poetically then morphed into a scolding tirade.” Perhaps the energy that the rage ignites might have be tempered to a better poetic effect; the focus of the poem might evoke emotional articulation rather than the opposite. The “we” narrator, introduced in the second stanza may, in this context, be too presumptive for readers.

Nevertheless, the power within the poem demonstrates the deleterious effects of war that surreptitiously invade each of us.

September Twelfth, the day after
round the world not much laughter.
On the tarmac in rural Gander
heads turned to the lander.

From the sky many a flight
all day landing and all night
Who are the people who came today?
The Canadians reply, they “Come From Away.”

They kissed the cod,
they fried the fish
they sipped the soup
All made a wish.

Canadian words are soft spoken
“All our homes are now open.
We understand the misery,
Now we stand, on guard for thee.”

When the people did depart
They carried away their heavy heart.
“We will remember for evermore,
Kind Newfoundland and Labrador.”

Here is the list of poems and their authors. In this essay the first poem is published with my commentary. In future essays the other poems will follow.

First Place: “Old Fruit” by Deanna Christiansen
Second Place: “wheelbarrow red” by Tim Ornelas
Third Place: “God Left Them What They Desired” by Walter Canter

Old Fruit
— Deanna Christiansen

As if I were Eve, eating, not for a moment recalling
The commandment of Love,
I swallow nearly whole the bait of Fear of Others,
As if they lusted for my life, deceive myself that it’s kind
To offer any nearby Adam a healthy bite,
Pretend to the untrusted Lord that I’ll return
While I contrive, concealed, to obliterate the Other
First. Well-disguised, false memories join hatred
As the law; war dissolves the Common Good,
Fouls the path to peace. Futilely I think to turn to God,
Discover I have sown the wind.

Deanna Harrington Christiansen

lives in Barrington, New Hampshire. She graduated from Bethel Theological Seminary (2002) in San Diego, California with a Master’s in Theological Studies. She earned certificates in Spiritual Formation and Direction Studies from Christian Formation and Direction Ministries (CFDM) in 2005.

Christiansen’s publications include a collection of poems “Notes On a Flight Home” (2008) and “Plantings” (2016), a collection of essays, poetry, and song. Both are available at her website Deanna Christiansen. Christiansen also writes a column on Substack at Christiansen's Substack. About the theme of this contest she commented that “Some poems are difficult to write; almost all poems to be written on demand are near impossible.”

Commentary

The first phrase in “Old Fruit” is both challenging and ambitious. Christiansen starts with an abstract phrase, “As if,” and immediately introduces the feminine narrator, a latter day Eve, mirroring the most famous woman in the Old Testament. Depending on the vocal tone of this expression, either haughty or jaded, the attitude of the narrator can change. One of the judges noted this difficulty and remarked that the author of the poem “makes effective use of the myth of Eve—not an easy task— to explore Merton’s claim that ‘the root of war is fear.’” Another judge remarked how the poem sustains the relevance of the entire story of the fall in the garden and its consequences while at the same time commenting on our present day deceptions, “Well-disguised, false memories join hatred as the law.” The final line of the poem, “I have sown the wind,” pays homage to the well known proverb and invigorates it; “He who troubles his own house will inherit the wind.” (Proverbs 11:29)

******

For inspiration here is the text of the World War I poem “In Flanders Fields” written by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian doctor and poet who served in World War I. McCrae wrote the poem on May 3, 1915, the day after presiding over the funeral and burial of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer who had been killed during the Second Battle of Ypres. McCrae died attending to the sick and injured of the war. It must be remembered that McCrae knew how to “stand on guard for thee” and “il sait porter la croix!”1

In Flanders Fields
— John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Since the poem did not circulate widely there are very few commentaries about it. Thomas Spencer briefly writes that ““Litany” was a particularly cynical poem with anti-war verses….”2 Perhaps the poem is misnamed. There is little evidence that demonstrates the structure of a litany unlike the other two unpublished poems with the same name which include much repetition.3 There are some hints that the poem remained incomplete. Is the singing a dirge or a canticle? The first verse begins “Sing miserere” while the first two lines of the second stanza are…”Thrushes, linnets sing / To Christ, Creator , King, ….”

The first two opening lines of the poem immediately frame Merton’s point of view of what is likely to occur.

Sing miserere
For the men who must die

In stanza two the last two lines summarize the future war.

And drums for death knell
March millions into Hell.

The last two lines of the poem reprise the opening two lines of the poem.

Speak now of mercy
Or all men must die.

Three lines at the end of the first stanza are enticing. Merton writes the third line in quotations. Who is he quoting? Probably no one but it’s fun to speculate. Reading the verses before this verse suggests that the quotation may be a made up verse inside the poem. Since Merton wrote this in 1939 he may have thought he would come back and edit or expand the verse. Perhaps there was a deadline for the Columbia publication.

Sing a litany
For their idolatry:
"Flesh can only die."

The first thought for readers is a verse in St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 13. St. Paul writes ….

For if you live according to the flesh you will die...

A second possibility is that readers may imagine a poet who influenced Merton. The poet writes…4

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. 

Finally in the third stanza there are two other intriguing lines.

Then wounds cry your name
At this feast of the lame:  

The word “your” is not capitalized but it suggests the narrator might be addressing “Christ.” The phrase “feast of the lame” is more puzzling; is this a liturgical reference to a feast day or are the “lame” celebrating? A final question about this poem being incomplete: did Merton think about a rhyming scheme? Some lines indicate he might have thought of changing the structure of the poem. Here are several rhymes in the poem: blood/mud, sing/King, breath/ death, knell/Hell and name/lame. As T. S. Eliot may have commented about the writing of Merton: “Merton should write less and edit more.”

If a reader puts aside these suggestions and continues reading Conjectures Merton continues to tempt the reader with other diversionary paths. On page six, Merton begins a short commentary on the Benediction rule with an odd introductory.

“There is nothing whatever of the Ghetto spirit in St. Benedict. That is the wonderful thing both about the Rule and about the Saint:….

It is easy to understand why the words “saint,” and “rule” are capitalized but why “ghetto.”

Merton uses it here as a proper noun referring to the Venetian island1 whose purpose and history both changed over the centuries. In the online word site, Wordsmith, the entomology of the word is discussed.

The word ghetto is a fascinating example of how words come to mean something entirely different as they travel through time.2

Merton is writing in the early 1960s when the American usage of the word “ghetto” is strongly attached to sections of American cities where blacks were confined to live. He capitalizes the word in Conjectures to connect the word instead to its historical context. Merton knew well the ghetto in New York City called Harlem since it adjacent to Columbia University. In The Seven Storey Mountain Merton writes about his awareness of the work of Baroness Von Hueck.3

I had heard something about her, and her work in Harlem, because she was well known and admired in Corpus Christi parish, where I had been baptized.

Catherine de Hueck founded Friendship in Harlem in 1938, the same year Merton was studying at Columbia. He met her twice and hinted he might be interested in joining her in her work in Harlem. At one time he visited Friendship House in Harlem. In this section of The Seven Storey Mountain Merton outlines an excellent comparison of the goals of Communism versus Catholicism.4 However, in 1941, Merton went to Kentucky instead.

The spirituality of Merton is deep and broad. Here in the opening pages of Conjectures Merton notes the importance of the Rule of Saint Benedict, the theology of Karl Barth, the historical persecution of the Jewish people, the hopeful spirit of the South American poets. Yet, at the same time Merton is grounded in his own geographical place. Merton changes quickly the pace of his observations. On page seven Merton writes….

This morning, before Prime5, in the early morning sky, three antiquated monoplanes flew over the monastery with much noise, followed by a great heron.

Merton writes prose that possess hints of poetry, a feel of an aubade: early morning with technology and creation both singing in a heavenly procession.

When Merton writes poetry about nature is a bit more effusive than his prose. Quite often he stops whatever he is doing and looks around the abbey. Here are the first two lines of the poem “The Song of the Traveller.”6

How light the heavy world becomes, when with
    transparent waters,
All the shy elms and wakeful appletrees are dressed!

and in the last line in that first stanza.

O green spring mornings when we hear creation singing.

In the poem The Storm At Night the two opening lines read….

All night the wind sings like a surf
Filling our windows with the flailing hailstorm.

And the first three lines of the poem Spring: Monastery Farm begin…

When it is spring
When the huge bulls roam in their pens
And sing like trains;....

Just enough to meditate on.

Merton, in his subsequent books after his autobiography, clearly develops a Christian spirituality; his general optimism about humanity, often bridled by pointed criticism, still inspires many people. A reader has only to read the title of the first essay in Seeds of Contemplation, “Everything That Is, Is Holy,” to understand this thin volume weighs far more it looks. Yet, when the reader approaches the next to last essay the title is “Contemplata Tradere” and the reader has three options.

• First, ignore the Latin expression and hope Merton explains its importance in the essay; he does, but understanding “contemplata” becomes progressively harder. In this essay Merton’s prose approaches the mystical and those readers whose mystical experience is minimal are understandably shaking their heads.

• Second, dust off your Latin dictionary and “trot” to review declensions. The literal translation is “to give contemplation.”

• Third, venture out on a theological expedition and discover that Merton has abbreviated the phrase from the original in the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas; “contemplata aliis tradit;” This liberal translation supplies detail;“ to give to others the fruits of contemplation.” The phrase is the unofficial motto of the Dominicans, The Order of Preachers.

What has Merton done here? By placing this title and essay at the end of the book Merton clearly encourages the reader to imitate the Dominican mission by changing from personal contemplation to community action. Readers are reminded that this set of essays asks the same question; who is Thomas Merton? Contemplative monk or Catholic activist?

All three options above are fine; the first is just to get started; the second is to gather details; and the third is to develop depth. Option three is the most useful in understanding some of the poetry of Thomas Merton. It would be incorrect to assume that Merton is trying to be lofty by inserting Latin or French phrases into his poems. Merton is not showboating; one of Merton’s gifts as a writer was his comfortable command of several languages.

As Thomas Merton writes in the opening chapter of The Seven Storey Mountain;

“…in the shadow of some French mountains on the borders of Spain, I came into the world.”

By birth Merton was French. His mother was born in Zainesville, Ohio.1 His father was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. Merton’s English is international: United States, Britain and New Zealand. Merton grew up essentially as a bilingual child; primarily English as an infant but he learned French quickly when he attended a French bordering school, Lycée Ingres, in Montauban, France at ten years old. He learned quickly and switching between languages came as natural to Merton as breathing. In The Seven Storey Mountain Merton briefly recalls an incident2 at the school when some students critiqued the hero of an adventure novel for not being true to his background. Merton had not considered this defect of character in the novel. When writing of this nostalgic incident that occurred more than twenty years earlier Merton eases comfortably into colloquial French. He can’t help it.

Allons donc, mon vieux, c’est impossible, ça! C’est tout à fait inoui! I had not thought of that at all. [Come on, old man, that’s impossible! It’s completely untrue!]

Merton learned Latin, his next language, at Ripley Court, a school in Surry, England in 1928 when he was thirteen. He admired his great-aunt, Maud Pearce, who arranged his acceptance at the school, and confided in her that he had a goal of being a journalist. She replied, “Perhaps, that is a good idea. A knowledge of languages would be very valuable in that field.”3 When Merton entered Ripley he admitted he did not know Latin. Merton writes;

“What was to be made of a boy who was already in his fourteenth year and could not decline mensa—had never even opened a Latin grammar?4

After Ripley he entered Oakham, a prestigious English school, in 1929 and after studying there for three years passed several Higher Certificate exams in French, German and Latin. After Oakham Merton traveled around Italy for two months relying on his French to learn useful Italian when he endured dental problems. The Roman dentist finally understood Merton’s pain and in a soup of French and Italian replied, “Vous avez un colpo d’aria. [You have a chill in your tooth.]”5 So, at the age of seventeen Merton is reasonably fluent in Latin and in four other languages. Do not fault Merton for his virtues. Reading the poetry of Merton requires some understanding of the importance of these words in another language. To begin let us start at the end of Merton’s life.

New Directions published Cables to the Ace in 1968, the same year Merton died. The collection, actually only one long eighty-eight section prose poem, has a subtitle: “Familiar Liturgies of Misunderstanding.” There is also an epigraph in French from Alain Robbe-Grillet, and a dedication…and a prologue with the first verse advising the reader that the prologue even isn’t necessary.

You, Reader, need no prologue.  

What is Merton doing? Is he confused? Depressed? It is probably wise to start over, slowly.

The TITLE is Cables to the Ace. Merton uses the word “cables” in the late 1960s metaphorically to mean an important diplomatic message usually sent by telegraph, and the word “ace” is probably meant to be God. The influence of the “beat poets” can be recognized in the title. Merton’s title here suggests that his trust in God has waned and he decides to inform Him of what is happening to society as technology transforms it.

The SUBTITLE is Familiar Liturgies of Misunderstanding. The structure of the “poem” contains eighty-eight “cables” sent to God to enlighten Him about specific problems that god doesn’t seem to know about.

The DEDICATION is to Robert Lax, who, at the time of publication of this collection, had already established himself as a self-imposed hermit living in the Greek Isles. An off-beat poem for an off-beat friend; why not!

The EPIGRAPH in French attributed Alain Robbe-Grillet sets the structure of the poem: It refers to how a story is told rather than what the story is about. Merton agrees with Robbe-Grillet and tosses aside the classical strictures of poetry by employing a radical form. The epigraph is…

La mise en question du monde dans lequel nous sommes ne peut se faire que par la forme et non par une anecdote vaguement sociale ou politique.

This reference sets the tone and guides readers to understanding the “poem.” The translation is…

Questioning the world in which we find ourselves can only be done through form and not by a vaguely social or political anecdote.

Alain Robbe-Grillet, in this quotation from For a New Novel (Pour un nouveau roman), suggests that literature, if it will find solutions to cultural problems in a disintegrating society should also be linguistically broken rather than continue traditional polite disagreements. For Robbe-Grillet, the structure of a story is more important the content of the story. Could this be the linguistic adaptation of the design principle “form follows function"?” Merton and Robbe-Grillet desire change in the emerging technological society, so they change their form of writing to achieve their purposes. Robbe-Grillet writes that…6

"Might we not advance on the contrary that the genuine writer has nothing to say?  He has only a way of speaking...

Merton has done this before in a poem where there is an “unknown” narrator. It is discussed here —> Chant to Be Used in Processions Around a Site With Furnaces.

If the reader decides to read any of the eighty-eight sections of Cables to the Ace remember to bring your bilingual French dictionary for section 35. It begins with…

Je vous lis les sonnets d’un capitaine aveugle. Il a les yeux pleins de beaujolais.  Il chante le partage des communions electriques.

The translation is….

I am reading you the sonnets of a blind captain. His eyes are full of Beaujolais. He sings about sharing electric communions.

Ah, Beaujolais? Reading Merton’s poetry? Just a moment!

On June 18, 1939 the New York Times published an article reporting on the reward from Columbia University for the Mariana Griswold van Rensselaer Annual Poetry Prize to Thomas Merton.

The title of the poem was Fable for a War and the entire poem, without commentary, was included in the article. It may have been Merton’s first exposure of his poetry to a wide American audience. The poem is also included in the Collected Poems of Thomas Merton published in 1977 by New Directions. Neither the Times article nor the collection includes any commentary. The collection is especially minimalist in that the only information about the poem is the year of the poem’s publication. A search at the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University for commentary on the poem produced mostly bibliographical references although scholarly articles about Merton’s anti-war poems usually include some observations about this poem.

Perhaps interest in this early Merton poem would have been piqued had another event occurred. Ten years later a selection of Merton’s poems, The Tears of the Blind Lions, was published by New Directions. The thin volume of thirty-two pages was under consideration for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. That year the committee encountered a dilemma - an abundance of excellent poetry not only from Merton but Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams. The committee, however, awarded the prize to an emerging poet, a black woman, Gwendolyn Brooks, for her debut poetry publication, A Street in Bronzeville. The committee decided that it would not list other poets being considered to further enhance the quality of her work and prevent her novice art to be compared to the established poets of the era. However, Fable for a War deserves a better legacy if only because its subject matter is still relevant today.

Here is Merton’s winning poem exactly as printed by the New York Times. The version printed in the New Directions collection of his poetry differs slightly in spelling, wording and punctuation.

FABLE FOR A WAR

The old Roman sow 
Bears a new litter now
To fatten for a while
On the same imperial swill.
The cannibal wolf will dig
And root out the Spanish bones beside the pig.

Germany has reared 
A rare ugly bird
To screeth [sic] a sour song 
In the German tongue:
Tell me if there be 
A sparrow hawk for such as he?

The parrots lift their beaks
And fill the air with shrieks.
Ambassador is sent
From the Parrots’ parliament:
“Oh, see how fine I fly
And nibble crackers got in Germany.”

Europe is a feast
For every bloody beast:
Jackals will grow fat
On the bones after that.
But in the end of all
None but the crows can sing the funeral.

Germany has reared
A rare ugly bird,
But crows ate Roman pig
Before this bird was egg.
And in the end of all
Crows will come back and sing the funeral.

Commentary on Merton’s Poem Fable for a War

The influence of William Blake is obvious. Merton had recently finished his Master thesis on Blake for Columbia. Immediately, from the title line, the genre of the poem promises a moral story and the animals, standard characters in fables, appear in the first stanza: a Roman sow, a cannibal wolf, jackals and a rare ugly bird, plus a potential “villain-hero,” a sparrow hawk.

Sparrow hawks inhabit all continents except Antarctica. The “sparrow” part of its name does not refer to its temperament but to its size. The sparrow hawk is the smallest of the falcons and hovers in the air rather than soaring. It surprises its prey, usually small songbirds, by dropping down and capturing them alive. North American bird watchers know this species as the kestrel.

In the second stanza Merton allows no doubt about the main antagonists of the poem: Germany and its rare ugly bird - Hitler. Then the poem shifts impatiently and Merton speaks directly to the reader:

Tell me if there be 
A sparrow hawk for such as he?

Is Merton asking for a hero hawk to kill Hitler like the sparrow hawk kills another bird?1

While Chamberlain was trading the Sudetenland for European peace Hitler had other plans. The Munich Agreement in September, 1938 was preceded by Winston Churchill’s more sober analysis2 that

“I think we shall have to choose in the next few weeks between war and shame, and I have very little doubt what the decision will be.”

Churchill understood Hitler better than Chamberlain. So, it seems, did Merton. In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander Merton writes that “Hitler regarded the power of his madness as a divine power because he felt inspired.”3

The third stanza derides the empty parroting of the British parliament and Merton spares no scorn for Neville Chamberlain – allegedly quoting him– who chose shame over war and got both. Stanzas four and five predict, like Churchill, the inevitable; Europe ravaged once again only twenty plus years since the end of the war to end all wars.

Merton would become a fierce critic of nuclear weapons but he was not a pacifist. As a future Catholic theologian perhaps he was already aware of the Roman Catholic theory of “the just war.” But the just assassination? Did Merton paraphrase Henry II’s veiled request about Thomas Becket, “Can someone rid me of this dictator?” Did Merton realize he might be advocating the idea that “The end justifies the means?”

It is not difficult to recognize a contemporary parallel with Russia’s annexation of the Crimea in March, 2014 and subsequent invasion of Ukraine eight years later. The thought was to avoid a war but it was merely late in arriving. Is it time to resurrect Pete Seeger’s song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and ask the question, “When will they ever learn?”

Here is the link to the Guidelines —> The Root of War Poetry Contest

The Battle of Blenheim occurred on August 13, 1704 and, as the poem indicates, it provided a “great and famous” victory in the War of the Spanish Succession. However, despite its relative importance in that war the battle remains mostly unknown and forgotten. Almost a century later Southey writes this poem.

Here is a link for more information.

Poem Analysis by Joseph Bottum

Southey combines comedy and satire reminiscent of a Gilbert and Sullivan comedic style which entertained while educating. Kasper emerges in the poem as confused and unsure which is exactly what Southey intends the reader to feels; a warrior reflecting about wars. What were they really about?

Does any American “Remember the Maine?” Or the The Battle of Chipyong-ni, the “Gettysburg of the Korean War?" Perhaps some living veterans have heard of The Battle of Dai Do which had about 500 causalities? No one remembers the second incident in the Gulf of Tonkin for an obvious reason: it never happened.

The Battle of Blenheim

Robert Southey

It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar’s work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet
In playing there had found;
He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large, and smooth, and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And, with a natural sigh,
“’Tis some poor fellow’s skull,” said he,
“Who fell in the great victory.

“I find them in the garden,
For there’s many here about;
And often when I go to plough,
The ploughshare turns them out!
For many thousand men,” said he,
“Were slain in that great victory.”

“Now tell us what ‘twas all about,”
Young Peterkin, he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;
“Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for.”

“It was the English,” Kaspar cried,
“Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for,
I could not well make out;
But everybody said,” quoth he,
“That ‘twas a famous victory.

“My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.

“With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide,
And many a childing mother then,
And new-born baby died;
But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

“They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.

“Great praise the Duke of Marlbro’ won,
And our good Prince Eugene.”
“Why, ‘twas a very wicked thing!”
Said little Wilhelmine.
“Nay... nay... my little girl,” quoth he,
“It was a famous victory.

“And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win.”
“But what good came of it at last?”
Quoth little Peterkin.
“Why that I cannot tell,” said he,
“But ‘twas a famous victory.”

Here is the information.

The 2026 Poetry of the Sacred Contest is Now Open!

Submission Deadline: August 24, 2026

The Center for Interfaith Relations is looking for original poetry submissions that explore the legacy of Thomas Merton through the contemplative and spiritual practice of writing.

Here is the link for further information —> Sacred Poetry Contest

The contest details were published on May 29, 2026. Submissions end on August 31, 2026.

Here is the link —> The Root of War Poetry Contest

Many anti-war poems were written during and after the two world wars. The following poem was written by Wilfred Owen during the first World War and published posthumously in 1920.

The poem follows a soldier who meets his enemy in hell immediately after their deaths on the battlefield. They become eternal friends and review the life they never lived? A strange meeting indeed. An honest poem and profound meditation.

More information at a site in the United Kingdom—> The Wilfred Owen Association

Strange Meeting

- Wilfred Owen

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,—
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision’s face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said that other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . .”

Here is the link to the Guidelines —> The Root of War Poetry Contest

Many anti-war poems were written during and after the two world wars. The following poem was written by Wilfred Owen during the first World War and published posthumously in 1920. Owen derides the classical notion of “glory in the battle for one’s country” by mocking the adage of Horace. In the poem the theme of war is that it destroys the participants. 1

Dulce et Decorum Est
- Wilford Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Notes

The last two verses are Latin verses from the Roman poet Horace.
“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”

Ode III, 2.13

Dylan Thomas spoke about Wilfred Owen on one his BBC radio broadcasts.

“Wilfred Owen was born in 1883 and killed in 1918. Twenty-five years of age, he was the greatest poet of the First Great War. Perhaps, in the future, if there are men, then, still to read, — by which I mean, if there are men at all — he may be regarded as one of the great poets of all wars. But only war itself can resolve the problem of the ultimate truth of his, or of anyone else’s poetry: war, or its cessation.”2

To be fair another commentator, William Butler Yeats, belittled Owen’s poetry. Yeats did not include Owen in his 1936 anthology3 and commented on omitting Owen’s poetry writing that …

I have a distaste for certain poems written in the Great War...

Many years later General George Patton summarized this opinion with cruder words. In a speech to the troops toward the end of World War II Patton remarked that…

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

More information at a site in the United Kingdom—> The Wilfred Owen Association

And a contemporary poet reflects on war…

In order for me to write poetry that isn't political
I must listen to the birds
and in order to hear the birds
the warplanes must be silent. 

   Marwan Makhoul, Verses the Poems Forgot With Me (2023), born: July 2, 1979

Encyclicals, over the centuries, are frequently quoted but rarely read. Unfortunately, the first encyclical of Leo XIV will continue this dubious tradition despite the fact that one of his observations is spot on with an insightful reference to the Roman Catholic author, J. R. R. Tolkien and his character Gandalf.2

Tolkien writes, Gandalf speaks and the Leo XIV quotes both…

“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.”

Shortly after in the encyclical, Leo XIV quotes himself echoing the sentiments of his predecessor Pope Francis. Words are weapons and when they wound or worse cannot be revoked. Leo XIV writes…

“Let us disarm words and we will help to disarm the world.”

This bellicose aspect of words is not new. Edmund Burke remarked that…

“A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arise from words.3

Leo XIV continues his opening remarks in the encyclical by warning readers to avoid the “Babel syndrome,” a process of dehumanization propelled by the latest developments of technology. This observation is also not new. Thomas Merton proclaimed the identical message about seventy years ago. His poem “Tower of Babel” appeared in Jubilee magazine in 1955 and his verse play “The Tower of Babel” was published in 1957 in the collection The Strange Islands.

The subtitle of the poem “The Political Speech” provides a context in which the poem is meant to be understood. In the opening of the poem Merton writes about words.4

History is a dialogue between
forward and backward
going inevitably forward
by the misuse of words.

Merton concludes that words lose their power and then their essence…

Thus words have no essential meaning.
They are means of locomotion
From backward to forward
Along an infinite horizontal plane...

The final two verses of the poem sound eerily like Merton is critiquing the nature of the Internet and the design of a browser.

The backward-forward working of the web
The movement into the web.

But, of course, this is impossible. The origin of the Internet did not occur until ARPANET in 1969, a year after Merton died.

Much of the encyclical addresses the issue of artificial intelligence. This also is not a new issue. Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher studying media theory, believed that “We shape our tools and our tools shape us.”5 In an earlier verse of the the same poem Merton writes that…

The forgotten principle is that the machine
Should always destroy the maker of the machine...

Are Merton and McLuhan both prophets or better—a pair of seers?

Sponsor and Administrator: Thomas Brennan on Substack: Thomas Merton: Contemplative Monk or Catholic Activist

Dates: Contest opens July 1, 2026 at 12 Noon, Eastern Daylight Time and closes August 31, 2026 at 12 Noon Eastern Daylight Time.

Theme: The poem must reflect any theme in the essay by Thomas Merton titled “The Root of War is Fear” based on this chapter in Seeds of Contemplation.

Entry Rules and Guidelines:

1. Submit only one poem per entry. Multiple entries are not permitted. By submitting a poem the author agrees to the rules and guidelines of this contest..

2. All poets, age eighteen (18) years on the date of submission, are eligible to enter.

3. Poems: Original, entirely by one human author, and never published in any form. Simultaneous submissions are allowed. Notice of acceptance would be appreciated.

4. Fee: None.

5. The maximum length of the poem thirty (30) lines or less. Title, subtitle, dedication, epigraph, and blank lines are not counted as lines.

6. The poem must be anonymous with a title. The name of the author or other personal identification must not appear on the page of the poem.

7. The poem must be in standard English with standard grammatical style.

8. Formatting: Font style should be Times New Roman in 12 point with single line spacing for visual neutrality. Margins are one (1) inch on top/bottom, half an inch (1/2) left/right

9. The poem should be accompanied by an informational page which contains the full name of the author, the title of the poem and a postal and an email address. Winners will be asked for a brief biographical paragraph.

10. Submissions must be online by email. Send the information page in the body of the email with the poem as an attachment in the .DOCX format to SubstackPoetryContest2026@gmail.com

11. Winning poems (plus chosen honorable mentions) will be announced by email and posted on this Substack account prior to December 31, 2026. The copyright of an entry belongs to the author.

12. Decisions of the judges will be final.

13. Awards: First Place: $50(US), Second Place: $25, Third Place: $10.

14. Questions should be posted as comments to this announcement so that replies with clarifications can be accessed by all readers.

Judges

James M. Kee is Professor Emeritus of English at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts in the United States. He taught courses in medieval literature from 1981 until 2016. Responsibilities also included courses in poetry and poetics, tragedy, literary theory, and the Bible and literature. His published essays examined the writings of Dante, Langland, Milton, Wordsworth and Keats. His research explored the relationship between religion and the intellectual life.

Martin Keefe retired from IBM where he worked in international marketing. He has written scripts for one-act plays and performed comedy sketches in New York’s Greenwich Village. He wrote a memoir Taking the Measure (2016) followed by a collection of short stories, Tales from a Cardboard Box (2020). His latest publication is a collection of poems, Moments Along the Way (2021).

Michael Whalen has published a collection of memoir poems in free verse After God (2014), a set of poems in éirways magazine (2016) about the Irish poet Dermot Healy. Other publications include the poem “Idea of Order in Saint Francis de Sales” in the Wallace Stevens Review at the John Hopkins University Press (2020). In addition, his poems have appeared in the Innisfree Poetry Journal, the Coachella Review, and the Irish literary magazine the Galway Review.