MERTON'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH:
Randall, Margaret, 1936-
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Descriptive Summary
Record Group: Section A - Correspondence
Dates of materials: 1963-1968
Volume: 28 item(s); 33 pg(s)
Scope and Content
This is a file in the correspondence of Thomas Merton under the heading: "Randall, Margaret".
Biography
Born in New York, Margaret Randall spent much of her youth in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After a year at the University of New Mexico, she spent time in Spain and in New York. During those years she married for the first time and had a son. In 1960, she moved to Mexico City and from 1962-1969 co-edited El Corno Emplumado (the feathered horn). "Corno" was a bi-lingual literary journal bridging the cultures of North America and Latin America. Randall married one of her co-editors, Sergio Mondragón. The couple had two daughters and Randall became a Mexican citizen. She divorced Mondragón in 1969 and had a daughter with another co-editor of Corno, Robert Cohen. With Robert Cohen, the family moved to Cuba where Randall remained until 1980. After working for the Cuban Book Institute for a number of years, she began work as a free-lance journalist, photographer, and oral historian, specializing in the struggles of women in Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru and Vietnam. In 1980, she continued this work while living in Nicaragua with her youngest two daughters. In 1984, Randall moved back to Albuquerque and married poet Floyce Alexander, where she taught Women's Studies and American Studies at the University of New Mexico. The INS denied Randall permanent residence in the United States in 1985 citing the McCarran-Walter Act, which denied citizenship to those thought to be subversive and could charge individuals who had either been members of the Communist Party or even those who were deemed supporters of communism. After a long legal fight with the help of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the INS decided in 1989 that she had not relinquished her citizenship while in Mexico, and therefore, was still a citizen of the United States. Having resolved the case, she felt free to become public as a lesbian, addressing what that means in our culture in her writings. She also had written and lectured on being an incest survivor. She continues a prolific legacy of books, poetry and essays, while continuing to lecture. (Sources: Biography from "Inventory of the Margaret Randall Papers, 1954-2000". Center for Southwest Research, Zimmerman Library, University of New Mexico. Accessed 15 Feb. 2006. ‹http://elibrary.unm.edu/oanm/NmU/nmu1%23mss663bc/nmu1%23mss663bc_m4.html›; with biographical information from the prior website excerpted from: "Contemporary Lesbian Writers of the United States". Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993. Randall biography by Trisha Franzen.)
Usage Guidelines and Restrictions
Related Information and Links
See also letters from Merton to Randall published in The Courage for Truth, pp. 214-223; and see also contributions to Monks Pond, Volume 1.
Other Finding Aids
If the person in correspondence with Merton has full text records in the Merton Center Digital Collections, there will be a numeric link to them below.
Series List
This Record Sub-Group is not divided into Series and is arranged chronologically.
Container List
| Series | Date | Type | To/From | First Lines | Pub | Full Text | Notes |
| | 1963/01/03 | TLS | to Merton | My husband, Sergio Mondragon, and I are very much interested in publishing something of yours | |
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| | 1963/01/15 | TAL[c] | from Merton | Thank you for the letter and for the issue of <u>El Cornu Emplumado</u> which I look forward | Yes |
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| | 1963/01/18 | TLS | to Merton | Our warmest thanks for your quick and wonderful reply to our letter...it was good getting a variety | |
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| | 1963/01/27 | TAL[c] | from Merton | Your letter reached me today (there is often considerable delay in letters getting through to me | Yes |
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| | 1963/10/04 | TLS | to Merton | Your letter, as always, was like a breath of pure air to us...and as are many of the letters we | |
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| | 1963/10/09 | TAL[c] | from Merton | I can quite understand that you cannot read my handwriting, so I will make an attempt to communicate | Yes |
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| | 1963/10/11 | TLS | to Merton | How fine to receive such a quick and good answer from you -typed- and I feel a great desire to speak | |
| [enclosed two photographs - one extant of her three-year-old son Gregory in a Flag Day parade - the other was described as a photo of Margaret Randall, Sergio de Mondragón, Regina Katz, and Ulises Estrella (this photo not extant)] |
| | 1964/05/16 | TLS | to Merton | How fine hearing from you, tho sadly from the hospital (hope by now you are no longer there!) | |
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| | 1964/10/29 | TAL[c] | from Merton | Thanks for the little book of poems of the glass which shatters, says go, and zigzags. I liked them | Yes |
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| | 1964/10/31 | TLS | to Merton | How fine hearing from you and having a chance to read the fine piece on Flannery O'Connor... I had | |
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| | 1967/03/25 | TL[c] | from Merton | It is a long time since I have written. Mexico City seems very far away and El Corno floats | Yes |
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| | 1967/03/30 | TLS | to Merton | how fine, after this long silence, on both our parts -- to again have contact. the poems are | |
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| | 1967/04/30 | TL[c] | from Merton | Very good to get your letter and all the books: also your own ms of Cuba poems (I'll return, you | Yes |
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| | 1967/05/31 | TLS | to Merton | yes, i do like the new poems as well as the others, and am keeping all to use sometime in the near | |
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| | 1967/06/06 | TL[c] | from Merton | Thanks for your very good letter. In these days when the big stupid machine is running away | Yes |
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| | 1967/06/13 | TALS | to Merton | your letter meant more to me than you can possibly imagine... in fact i think it would mean a great | |
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| | 1967/07/06 | TL[c] | from Merton | (or do you prefer Margaret?) Thanks for your good letter. We are very much in contact I think, | Yes |
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| | 1967/07/08 | TLS | to Merton | yes, i like margaret better than meg, but either one is o.k. i liked your article on ishi in PEACE | |
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| | 1967/12/13 | TL[c] | from Merton | So many thanks for the beautiful new book and for the poem. Much moved by all of it. Great warmth | Yes |
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| | 1967/12/16 | TNS | to Merton | here, quickly, before i leave for cuba on the 22nd, is some work for your fine sounding mag. | |
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| | 1968/01/08 | TL[c] | from Merton | Thanks for so many fine things. I'm using three for the first issue of MONKS POND and returning | Yes |
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| | 1968/04/03 | TLS | to Merton | i think your MONKS POND is very beautiful. i'm so glad to be part of it, like a ripple going out | |
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| | 1968/04/12 | TL[c] | from Merton | Thanks for your nice letter and for the lovely photo of the children. I am sending five copies | Yes |
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| | 1968/04/15 | TLS | to Merton | as always, good to hear. thanks for sending the 5 copies... that will be good, for me and others | |
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| | 1968/08/14 | TLS | to Merton | i have finished the castillo manuscript (translations), and it seems there is a chance Doubleday | |
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