The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University will host a two day conference on Oct. 19 and 20 on Thomas Merton’s poetry titled “In the Dark Before Dawn: Thomas Merton, Poet.”
This is the center’s first conference dedicated solely to Merton’s poetic collection. Merton published 10 books of poetry and his Collected Poems is more than 1,000 pages. The conference includes an international group of speakers, scholars who have all written about Merton’s poetry. These speakers include Michael Higgins, George A. Kilcourse, Ross Labrie, Patrick F. O’Connell, Lynn Szabo and Bonnie Thurston. There will also be a panel chaired by Frederick Smock of three poets who knew Merton: Jonathan Greene; Brother Paul Quenon, OCSO; and Ron Seitz.
Registration is $85 or $50 for students. Fees cover the conference, refreshments, lunch and the conference dinner. For more information, visit the conference Web site.
Bellarmine University’s Thomas Merton Center is the official repository of Merton's artistic estate which includes over thirteen hundred photographs and nine hundred drawings in addition to his writing. The Center archives more than 50,000 Merton-related materials.