| Author Quoted | Allen Ginsberg |
| Title Quoted | Kaddish and other poems 1958-1960 |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1961/07/11 |
| Imprint | [S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1961 |
| Quotation | It has taken me a long time to get to be able to follow your advice and read Kaddish [and Other Poems], because nobody sent me one. But finally Laughlin is out in SF and the City Lights Books sent me a copy. I agree with you about it. I think it is great and living poetry and certainly religious in its concern. In fact, who are more concerned with ultimates than the beats? Why do you think that just because I am a monk I should be likely to shrink from beats? Who am I to shrink from anyone, I am a monk, therefore by definition, as I understand it, the chief friend of beats and one who has no business reproving them. And why should I? Thank you for telling me about Kaddish. And I also liked very much the poem on Van Gogh's ear ["Death to Van Gogh's Ear!"]. I think this is one of the few people around who is saying anything. The others are in a bad way. I hope I can some time send you a long poem I think you may like. It ["Hagia Sophia"] is being printed by a friend of mine down the road here in Lexington. |
| Quotation Source | The Courage for Truth: Letters of Thomas Merton to Writers.; Selected and edited by Christine M. Bochen. / New York : Farrar Straus Giroux. 1993, p. 289-90 |
| Letter to | William Carlos Williams |
| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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