Outside of Father Merton—he (REF Larsson) is perhaps the best contemporary US Catholic poet.
(Letter from Kenneth Rexroth to Thomas Merton, August 28 1950)
William Everson is probably the most profoundly moving and durable of the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance… In my opinion he (Everson) has become the finest Catholic poet writing today, the best since R.E.F. Larsson.
(Kenneth Rexroth, Evergreen Review: San Francisco Letter 1(2): 1957, 5-14).
I have been roundly blasted for my identity with the Beat Generation, am forbidden to make public appearances in this diocese. (Everson letter to Merton, December 8 1960)
You are very right to be talking to the people you are reaching. And I respect them much more than some of the very stuffy and very square theologians who think they have answers when they don’t even have the questions. (Merton letter to Everson, March 13 1961)
I Introduction
I spent time in the summer of 1969 in Berkeley California, and when there, as an impressionable late teen, was mesmerized by the plethora of alternate cultural activities that dominated the cultural, artistic, educational, religious and political scene. When I returned to Canada in the autumn of 1969, I had much to ponder and think through on my young and untried journey.
I was quite taken and held, when in my early twenties, by reading Theodore Roszak’s hard cover and first edition of The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the technocratic society and its youthful opposition (1969). I marked each page, annotated and scribbled out my reactions and responses to the way Roszak, as a midwife of sorts, summed up many of the legitimate concerns of the emerging counterculture of the 1960s. Herbert Marcuse, Norman Brown, Allen Ginsberg, Alan Watts, Timothy Leary and Paul Goodman, for different reasons, played significant roles in Roszak’s read of the “youthful opposition” to an establishment culture. We all start somewhere in our attempt to understand the ethos of our age, and The Making of a Counter Culture was my introduction to some of the themes and script of the times.
It is significant to note that Thomas Merton and William Everson are absent in Rozsak’s primer and introduction of sorts to the counter culture---Merton waxed in influence in the 1960s and died in 1968 (a year before The Making of a Counter Culture was published) and Everson was, in many ways, riding the crest of his poetic and political popularity in the 1960s. Both Merton and Everson were very much part of the counter culture of the 1960s (Merton was called the “Hippie Hermit” by Suzanne Butorovich), both were wild bird Roman Catholics and both corresponded with one another—this short essay will examine and explore the nature of the friendship between Merton and Everson and, also, examine points of concord and discord between them. Roszak was somewhat remiss in ignoring Merton and Everson and this essay will, in some small way, correct such an obvious omission.
II Youthful Convergences
Everson’s letter to Merton (August 2 1960) asks this question: “Do you remember our publishing together in a little mag called Experimental Review, of Woodstock N.Y. years ago before the War? I think you were not yet a Catholic—and it would be years before I found Our Mother.”
Everson was right, of course, in that he and Merton had published together in the 1940---he erred, though, in thinking that Merton was not a Roman Catholic at the time and the War (although the USA had not entered at the time) was very much demanding its lethal due and tragic due.
Merton was 25 and Everson 28 in 1940 when Robert Duncan (once known as Robert Symmes) published their poems in Experimental Review (initially called Ritual). Duncan was quite taken by Everson’s poem, “Poem for the Day of the Feast” and Merton’s poem, “Song”. Merton seems to have had a much larger vision in mind of which “Song” was but a part. The correspondence between Merton and Mark Van Doren at the time (Perry Street Letters) reveals much about Merton’s poetic hopes and dreams. The original magazine that Everson and Merton submitted their poems to was Phoenix (of which James Cooney was the editor)—Phoenix folded in 1940 and Duncan’s Ritual-Experimental Review took the poems by Merton and Everson. The larger poetic oeuvre by Merton was to be called Crossportions Pastoral—needless to say, not much work has been done on this early phase of the Everson-Merton poetic meeting.
“Song” is a meditative poem by Merton not to miss and it was also published in Man in the Divided Sea. The deeper inner and contemplative dimensions of the soul (and its complex nature) are probed on the deep dives in the watery poem---the Joycean undercurrents cannot be missed in this conscious, subconscious and unconscious journey into the various and varied layers of the inner life. In short, there is a song and music but a certain attention and attentiveness is needed to hear it.
The contrast between Merton’s “Song” and Everson’s “Poem for the Day of the Feast” could not be more obvious---both poems speak much about the different tendencies and temperaments of the young and aspiring poets. The public and external nature of Everson’s celebrative autumn harvest poem cannot be missed---nourishing wine and golden grain, fruit bearing and feasting merge and mingle in this festive rural feast season. There is something quite Dionysian in “Poem for the Day of the Feast”, whereas “Song” is more restrained, more searching, more a subtle synthesis of a disciplined Apollo and Dionysius. It is significant that the poems by Merton and Everson were published with other emerging poets and artists who would play leading roles in post-WW II thought and life: Nin, Symmes, Sanders, Russell, Fabilli, Miller, Patchen, Kafka, Thomas.
It was, therefore, Robert Duncan in 1940 that initially published the untried poets: Thomas Merton and William Everson. It was this publication that Everson mentioned and reminded Merton of in his 1960 letter to Merton.
It was impossible, of course, to miss the dark war clouds on the horizon in 1940. Many men, of course, went to war, but this was not the path taken by Everson and Merton. I’m not sure it is possible to argue Merton was an absolute pacifist in WWII, but by December 1941, he was an aspiring monk at Gethsemani in Kentucky—Everson was still far from such a fold. I think it can be argued that Everson did take a pacifist position in WW II, and, as a result early in 1943, he was sent to Camp 56 at Waldport in Oregon. Everson worked as part of the CO Camp for the Civilian Public Service Camp. Everson, by the end of the War, was a well published poet (7 books to his credit) in a way Merton was not. It is quite understandable why Everson was hailed by Kenneth Rexroth in the post WW II poetic ethos as a bright light in the San Francisco Renaissance. Merton had a few chapbooks out at the time, but nothing comparable to Everson’s prodigious output.
Everson’s first marriage came unhinged after WW II, and it was shortly thereafter, he met Mary Fabilli (who was very much a poet and artist, but most importantly, a committed Roman Catholic). It was Fabilli who warmed Everson to the Roman Catholic way and by Christmas 1948, he had decided the Roman Catholic Church was to be his home. It is significant that in 1948 that Thomas Merton’s best selling and initial autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, was published. Everson had the broader literary reading public by 1948, but Merton was definitely waxing and on the rise. Merton had already begun correspondence with Rexroth (a mentor of sorts to Everson) and James Laughlin was a publishing mediator of sorts between Merton and Everson---New Directions Press had become, for many, a means to articulate a new path for American poetry—Laughlin was the publishing north star and Rexroth, Everson and Merton were part of the artistic galaxy of new poetic stars—Merton was, in 1948, 33 years of age and Everson 36. Everson was, very much, the poet, whereas Merton was a poet and much else (hence, perhaps, his broader appeal). Merton was probing, in the late 1940s, the contemplative path through a variety of smaller publications in a way Everson was not, but Everson was quite attuned to the work, writings and life of Merton in the early post WW II years.
It was just a matter of time before the implicit convergences would become more explicit.
The short lived marriage between Everson and Fabilli did not last beyond 1949, although the Roman Catholic impact of Fabilli on Everson worked its way ever deeper and deeper into the soil of Everson’s soul. Mary Fabilli is a much neglected female Beat writer and activist who has been, for the most part, neglected in Beat literature, although, gratefully so, she shines bright and clear in Women of the Beat Generation: The Writers, Artists and Muses at the Heart of a Revolution (1996).
It is impossible to miss the impact of Fabilli on Everson’s poetry in the late 1940s-early 1950s. Everson’s turn to the Roman Catholic Church, like Merton’s, led to a commitment to a Roman Catholic order. In July 1951, Everson became a Dominican lay brother (St. Albert’s College in Oakland CA). There are two letters from Rexroth to Merton (May 24 1947 & August 28 1950) which I have discussed, in some depth, in my missive, Thomas Merton and the Beats of the North Cascades (2006). The letter from Rexroth to Merton in 1950 mentioned Everson’s turn to the Roman Catholic Church and his involvement with Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker in the Oakland area. The interaction between Rexroth, Everson, Merton and Laughlin was significant at this period of time, although the fact Merton and Everson had become Roman Catholics meant they had a pilgrimage in common that they did not have with Rexroth and Laughlin.
The fact Merton was a Cistercian and Everson a Dominican did raise some essential differences in their understanding of the relationship between theology and spirituality, thinking and feeling—interestingly enough, there was something quite un-Dominican about Everson and something more Dominican about Merton. This will become apparent in the letters between Everson and Merton in the 1960s.
Merton emerged in the 1950s as, probably, one of the most important Roman Catholic writers on the contemplative life, the relationship between theology, liturgy and contemplation, contemplation and poetry/arts and a delving into the motherlode of Fathers/Mothers of the Church as a meaning of renewing the Roman Catholic tradition—much of Merton’s digging into the depths of the Church’s mystical and contemplative gold mine did much to inform Vatican II in some significant ways. I have touched on this in my article, “Thomas Merton and Nouvelle Theologie” (The Merton Journal: Eastertide, 2012).
Everson (now called Brother Antoninus), in the 1950s, had two large projects that preoccupied his time and attention: a freshly printed edition and new translation of the Psalms (a confessional and existential approach to the faith journey that Everson could aptly relate to) and his autobiography (patterned somewhat on Augustine’s Confessions and Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain). The sheer breadth and depth of both projects meant that neither project was completed in the 1950s. The autobiography, Prodigious Thrust, butted horns, again and again, with editors and publishers and Everson withdrew the growing tome for a later publishing date. Although Prodigious Thrust must be read as a phase and In Situ (as Allan Campo suggested) within Everson’s unfolding journey (rather enclosed and constricted in comparison to later writings), the large and earlier pre-Vatican II tome is worth the agonized read—much more turgid than Augustine, Newman and Merton’s varied autobiographies. Prodigious Thrust was, finally, published in 1996—even if it had been published in the 1950s, it lacked the literary and readable appeal of Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain or Bede Griffiths Roman Catholic conversion autobiography, The Golden String (which was published in the 1950s).
Both Merton and Everson, though, throughout the 1950s were poets with more and more poems being published in magazines and booklets. Both men, in many ways, had become the leading Roman Catholic poets in the United States and both had affinities with the Beat generation, Everson being called the “Beat Friar”.
III Meetings
The publication of Merton’s Selected Poems (1959) initiated, in some ways, the correspondence between Everson and Merton. Merton sent Everson a copy of Selected Poems and Everson replied to Merton in a letter in 1960 (August 2 1960). Everson mentioned in the letter he had purchased a copy of Selected Poems when in Berkeley, but he was most grateful for a copy of Merton’s inscribed edition. Everson then commented on the spiritual crises he was passing through and his lean poetic output the previous year (he had published 12 books by 1960 and An Age Insurgent and The Crooked Lines of God had been published in 1959). The 1950s, though, for the most part, had been a bleak publishing season for Everson---there was much soul suffering he was working through and a minimal read of Prodigious Thrust amply illustrates the cocoon and chrysalis Everson had to emerge from to be more vocationally creative.
Everson mentioned in the August 1960 letter that his poem, “Out of the Ash” reflected the significance of Merton, although Everson had attempted to steer wide from Merton’s “influence”. Everson thought Merton’s “The Quickening of St. John the Baptist: On the Contemplative Vocation” (previously published in The Tears of the Blind Lions) was his favourite, although he questioned why it was not published in Selected Poems. Everson wondered whether the omission of the poem had something to do with “your quarrel with the Dominicans about contemplation”—obviously, the poem was not omitted from Selected Poems for the reason Everson suggested, but there is no doubt that Dominicans, for the most part, lacked the contemplative bent that Merton was committed to (and Everson, in his own way, also). The theological and Thomist rationalism of some Dominicans was far from Merton’s vocational pathway and Everson’s also. “The Quickening of St. John the Baptist” is an evocative poem about the contemplative journey that both Merton and Everson contra Dominican spirituality could nod a hearty Amen to for significant reasons. The task of unpacking what is meant by the contemplative journey in a more confessional and personal manner did, in time, highlight differences between Merton and Everson, though. But, in 1960, Merton and Everson seemed to be fellow travellers on the same trail.
Merton’s reply to Everson’s letter (December 1 1960) is ripe with insight—Merton was most grateful for the article Everson had sent Merton on Leroi Jones on Cuba (Castro and Cuba, of course, not being high on the list of American establishment culture at the time). Merton alluded to the fact, in his letter, that most journalists and pundits of power tend to offer up “absurd images” of a certain illusory objectivity—such was the case of the Cold War as it played itself out in the attitude of many Americans to Cuba. Merton’s letter than turned to the relationship of silence, speech (written and oral) and how language had become perverted and distorted. The task of the contemplative poet was, as Eliot recognized, to purify the dialect of the tribe. Merton lamented the fact that he was being opposed because of a rather positive article he wrote on Teilhard de Chardin. The letter ended with Merton hopes that Milosz had been “in touch” with Everson.
Everson was certainly not slow in his response to Merton. Everson’s rather long letter (December 8 1960) delves yet deeper into his journey than his previous letter to Merton. It becomes rather obvious a few paragraphs into the letter that Everson is very much attempting, in his poetry and life, to write and life from his purified feelings and inner attitudes. There was a certain form of Thomistic Dominicanism that Everson knew well that was more about getting ideas and theology accurate and ordered, but such an approach tended to ignore the subjective reality of the thinker----Everson the poet was more committed to the subjective, inner and existential reality of theology—he challenged Merton on his more hesitant approach to prose and poetry that lacked a rawer approach to the inner life. It was this turn
By Everson to the significance of the inner life in reaction to mere ideas and religious rationalism that gave Everson many an affinity with the Beats. In fact, in the letter, he mentioned “I have been roundly blasted for my identity with the Beat Generation”. It seems the fact that Everson was “forbidden to make public appearances in the diocese” had more to do with a local bishop than his Dominican order which was “gradually accepting me as one of its own”. There could be no doubt that by late 1960 Everson had emerged as a significant Roman Catholic and Beat poet (much in demand in many literary places).
The fact that Everson had, in his inimitable way, challenged Merton to be more personal, confessional, existential in his poetry in his December 8 1960 letter did not go unnoticed by Merton. Merton took a few months to respond to Everson, but by March 13 1961 a letter left Merton’s typewriter. Merton was quick to acknowledge the truth of Everson’s probing questions---poetry had to be less digested theology and more raw human expression. Both men agreed that a great deal of theology simply missed the deeper human struggle and journey and both realized as prophetic poets of sorts that they had to embody a more prophetic poetry. I might add that Dan Berrigan was doing much the same thing, although Berrigan had a more rigorous ethical bite to him than did Everson and Merton. In short, the political poetry of Berrigan emerges from a more profound grounding in conscience, whereas Everson and Merton (with their great affinity with the Beats) are equally if not more so concerned about the realms of the unconscious and subconscious. Merton mentioned in his reply to Everson he was sending him a copy of Behavior of Titans and Merton also mentioned to Everson he had recommended his poetry to, probably, Ernesto Cardenal in Nicaraugua for publication. The letter comes to a close with a nod to Ferlinghetti and Merton noting that he was engaged with various Protestant groups in a dialogical way---as Everson to the Beats, Merton to the Protestants (Merton, needless to say, was much engaged with the Beats, also). Both men saw themselves as bridge builders (were often misunderstood for doing so) and, equally important, were often misunderstood by the Cistercian and Dominican tribes they belonged to.
Everson replied to Merton in shorter letter (August 22 1961), although much is packed into this shorter missive. It should be noted that Everson had written his rather graphic and erotic 30 page poem, “River Root” in 1957—it was not published until 1976. It is impossible to miss, though, the fact that Everson, in tapping into his deeper subconscious and subjectivity had gone to both sexual and Dionysian places few went. This journey would intensify as the 1960s unravelled for Everson.
Everson had also published, by this time, The Crooked Lines of God (1959)—in short, the contemplative journey of Everson with God was not a simple and uncomplicated one---The Crooked Lines makes this abundantly clear. But, in his letter to Merton in 1961, he mentioned a recent visit to Puget Sound and time spent with the much respected Northwest artist, Morris Graves. Everson also informed Merton how much he enjoyed both Behavior of Titans and Wisdom of the Desert----Everson was particularly taken by Section 3 in Behavior of Titans on Herakleitos—“Your Herakleitos is a magnificent piece”. The letter comes to an end with a portent of the future. Everson confessed that he was in the midst of a serious crisis that seemed to have “no solution”. The terrible crises, I suspect, had a great deal to do with his budding relationship with Rose Tunnland—the erotic urge threatened his Dominican commitments. The poem, “The Rose of Solitude” (1960), spelled out the dilemma in exacting detail. The letter to Merton made it clear where Everson’s raw and honest inner life was taking him. Merton was probably not fully aware of what Everson was on about in the 1961 letter, but time would soon clarify much in Everson’s journey.
Merton responded to Everson in a short note in September 1961. It seems Everson was very much on the lecture and reading circuit in 1960-1961 and Merton asked Everson if he was ever in the Gethsemani vicinity, Merton would be pleased to have Everson visit—there is not much more to Merton’s short letter, although much was occurring in Everson’s life at the time. Merton did respond with a longer letter to Everson in December 1961. It seems that Everson had contacted Merton about the new Spiritual Life Institute that had been formed by Fr. William McNamara (1926-2015). McNamara was very much on the cutting edge of an innovative approach to Carmelite communal desert spirituality that was much more earthy and grounded, in some ways, in a Dionysian spirituality---this approach, certainly, would have attracted Everson to McNamara. I was quite fortunate, for a period of time, to have a lively correspondence with Fr. William McNamara. The many retreats he led, books published and extensive correspondence do bring together, in some ways, the emerging contemplative traditions of Everson, Merton and McNamara—Merton even corresponded with McNamara. In fact, the Merton-McNamara correspondence (April 1965-July 1968) illuminates much about Merton, McNamara and various ways to think and live the contemplative life in a post-Vatican II ethos and setting. Merton’s reply to Everson in the December 1961 letter ponders some of the alternate community forms of being a contemplative in the Vatican II period of time, but, in such discussions, the innovative and controversial role of McNamara and The Spiritual Life Institute of America (SLIA) does need to be noted.
Everson continued to explore ever deeper the complex nature of spirituality and sexuality in his journey within the demanding reality of a Dominican formation context. The tensions were articulated in Everson’s probing way yet further in his poetic wrestling in Hazard of Holiness (1962). I think it can be legitimately suggested that McNamara (certainly as intense and passionate as Everson) handled the contemplative-sexuality issue, within the context of a monastic-friar tradition, in a more nuanced and mature manner—Merton, of course, had to deal with such tensions and challenges, also.
Everson responded to Merton (January 31 1963). Merton had sent Everson some poems he had translated from Raissa Maritain—both Merton and Everson were taken by the more genial and moderate Thomism of Jacques Maritain. Everson commented in the letter (as he had before) on how much he appreciated The Sign of Jonas. Everson had been giving readings in New York—he was not the least bit impressed by the city. “Can the human sensitivity survive the impact of this place? Only, I suppose, by reducing itself to a reptilian reaction, or insulating itself with either the consumption of superficialities or the search for God”.
There was a pause and lull in the correspondence between Everson and Merton throughout most of 1963 and well in 1964. It seems, though, that arrangements had been made for Everson to visit Gethsemani, read some of his poetry and lecture on contemplation and poetry by August 1964. The letters by Merton to Everson (August 26 & September 3 1964) make it clear that Everson was going to visit Gethsemani but the arrangements were still in flux.
The confusion regarding Everson’s visit was still, it seems, in a state of disarray in October 1964—Merton’s letter (October 5) reflects the organizational confusion. Everson replied in a letter (October 8) from the Dominican Priory (Kentfield CA) in which he encouraged Merton to firm up details for his November 8-14 visit. Everson was doing a poetry reading at University of Maryland and he hoped University of Louisville would accommodate him also---Louisville was slow of the mark, so Everson suggested Bellarmine. Everson concluded the letter to Merton “Looking forward keenly to seeing you”.
Merton’s letter to Everson (November 10 1964) is most welcoming. Everson was, at the time, in the area and Merton suggested to Everson that he give an “informal class on poetry, meaning of, how to read, how to appreciate etc etc to my novices and students? Only a half hour, very informal. Maybe a few words on one of your own poems?”
The visit by Everson to Gethsemani went well (I have a fine copy of the taped lecture of Everson’s approach to poetry, contemplation and theology of the event: 11/14/64). The correspondence and friendship of Merton and Everson ever grew and matured. It is significant to note, though, that Everson’s reading of poetry on the 12th of November at Bellarmine College was an animated and theatrical affair. The “Rose-cycle” of poetry was read in a dramatic way---Everson even tossed a vase of water on the bewildered audience—truly an evening not to forget as Everson engaged those in attendance in his eccentric and oral manner. There could be no doubt, though, that the relationship between Rose Tannlund and Everson had come to dominate Everson’s poetic life and his readings embodied such a dilemma for him. I think it could be suggested, with some caution and hesitation, that Everson’s journey and public tensions with the human and divine feminine anticipate Merton’s 1966 relationship with Margie. The fact that Everson was so honest, raw and vulnerable both in his life and poetry about his sexual and sensual attractions to Rose did make it possible for on the edge monks to, at least, ponder the issues.
Merton had taken a variety of photographs of Everson when he was at Gethsemani in November 1964, and Merton sent Everson a letter early in the new year (January 9 1965) commenting on how the photos of Everson are quite apt and portray Everson in a compelling way. Merton also mentioned the impending visit of Illtud Evans (editor of the New Blackfriars and prison reformer of sorts) to the monastery. Merton had sent a letter to Ed Keating he thinks might have offended him. Merton brought the letter to a close by mentioning that his “abstract calligraphies” were soon to be exhibited in various cities. The photographs of Everson by Merton, for the publication of a significant book by Everson, interested Everson, but it would take a couple of years for the book to go to print. Merton’s short lived but intense relationship with Margie would have come and gone by then.
Merton received a letter from Everson on January 27 1967. The book would become one of Everson’s best sellers (taking the Commonwealth Silver Medal in 1968). Everson asked Merton if he could use the photo Merton took of him (“The one with my whooping crane dance of ecstasy by Gethsemani water”). The book of poetry was, of course, a much enlarged version of the earlier poem, “The Rose of Solitude”. The book, The Rose of Solitude: A Love Poem-Sequence, is a nuanced 5-part probing poetic journey into and through the meaning of unitive love—quite unusual for a Dominican and. in many significant ways, Everson’s adieu to the Everson’s vow as a Dominican.
Merton replied to Everson (January 30 1967). Merton was delighted that Everson was going to use his photography (and gave him permission to do). He even said “May the book be blessed with power to heal the nations”. Merton again mentioned Illtud Evans and, even more importantly, the impact of “that tragic and heartrending book on Ishi, the last Yahi Indian” had on him---I have a lovely first edition of Merton’s must read keeper, Ishi Means Man: Essays on Native Americans-the “Foreward” by Dorothy Day and “Woodblock” by Rita Corbin make this missive a Merton gem. The book was not published until 1976. It is significant, though, that in Merton’s 1967 letter to Everson he is inching, in a sympathetic way, towards understanding the plight of the native Americans.
There is yet another letter to Everson from Merton (quite short—only three lines) in May 1968 in which he welcomed a poem or some contribution from Everson for his emerging poetic journey, Monks Pond. The final letter from Merton to Everson offers Everson a word of thanks for the gift of Hazards of Holiness.
Merton died on December 10 1968. What impact did Merton’s death have on Everson? We do know that Everson, in a highly dramatized and poetic way, tossed off his monk’s habit in a dramatic reading of “Tendril in the Mess” in December 7 1969. He had known Susanna Rickson since 1965, and a week after his theatrical reading in December 1969, he left the Dominicans and married Susanna Rickson---quite a different way of resolving the spirituality-sexuality issue than Merton or McNamara. McNamara’s approach was somewhat between Merton’s and Everson’s. The publication of Everson’s Man-Fate: The Swan Song of Brother Antoninus tells the tale, in a graphic and not to be forgotten manner, of Everson’s adieu to the Dominican phase of his journey---the “Preface” to the poetic missives explains the reasons for the shift in commitments: “The fate of Man Turns on the body of a woman”—such is the core and inner dynamic of Everson’s sensual and sexual departure from the Dominicans---Merton knew the temptation, but handled it differently as did McNamara.
IV Season
Merton passed into the West when he was just entering his early autumn years. Once Everson left the Dominicans, he continued to be an important American poet, literary critic and lecturer. Everson never quite achieved the pre-eminence Merton did and has, but both men had much in common—their commitment to the contemplative path, poetic affinities, politics, correspondence and struggles with the church all attest to a friendship that, sadly so, ended with Merton’s death in 1968. The articles on Merton and Everson are few, more need to be written and there is certainly much material to draw from. Everson lived well into his autumn season, finally dying in 1994 (almost 25 years after Merton’s death). There can be no doubt that Merton and Everson, as Roman Catholics, like Daniel Berrigan in a more austere way, were both countercultural and, as such, engaged the American Beats in a way few other Roman Catholics did. Both men were wild birds in their different ways, had different flight patterns, landed in different places, but there were moments in their lives (mostly the 1960s) when, for a season, both men shared the same space under the blue canopy and often landed in the same pond. Everson had a fuller autumn season than Merton (hence a greater poetic output), and there is much yet to ponder about where Merton’s literary and poetic output might have taken him if he had lived more maturely into his autumn season. There can be no doubt, though, that Merton and Everson were countercultural (Merton perhaps more moderate than Everson), but both men did, again and again, raise substantive questions (and attempted to answer such questions in their writings and lives) about the drift and direction of American imperial culture and its impact on citizens within the state and those on the outskirts of the imperial centre and core—such is their countercultural line and lineage, and it would have been most valuable if Theodore Roszak had included them in The Making of a Counter Culture.
Ron Dart
I own what may be the inscribed copy of Selected Poems Thomas Merton gave to William Everson.
Posted by: Ted Dunn | October 29, 2018 at 08:53 AM