Showing 4704 results

Authority record
Biram, John
Person · 1922-

John Biram was originally from England and moved to the United States around 1960. A couple of years later, he would quit his job as a scientist and focus on writing. He wrote poems and includes one called "A Cocktail Party" with this letter to Merton. He also writes about the negative effects of technology in a book called «Teknosis», which would be published until 11 years after this correspondence (1978).

Bettencourt, Yolanda
Person

Yolanda Bettencourt writes from the editorial department of the publishing house Livaria Agir Editors in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Best, James S.
Person

Jim Best was Director of Publications for the Fellowship of Reconciliation in New York and their magazine «Fellowship».

Berval, René de, Fr.
Person

Berval is writing on behalf of «France-Asie: Biligual Review of Asian Culture and Problems».

Berry, Wendell
Person · 1934-

Wendell Berry is a farmer and writer of poetry, novels, prose, and essays. He writes to Merton from Port Royal, Kentucky. Themes in his writings include concern for the land, environmental conservation, the value of work, and the culture of agricultural communities.x000D
Merton began a correspondence with Berry as he began to come of his own as a poet and author. Berry had returned to a family farm in his native Kentucky and was a professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Merton could appreciate Berry's simple life of nature and solitude on a farm and employing traditional agricultural means, both critical of the effects of modern farm machinery on rural life. Though Berry claimed that his poems could only loosely be considered haiku, Merton referred to them as such and included some in his magazine «Monks Pond». Berry shared Merton's opposition to Vietnam and knew many of Merton's friends from Lexington.

Berry, Thomas, Fr., C.P.
Person · 1914-2009

Passionist priest, writer, and scholar, Thomas Berry shared an interest with Merton in Asian spiritual traditions and both wrote on the subject. Later describing himself as a "geologian", Fr. Berry would achieve more prominence for his writings on deep ecology and ecospirituality.

Berrigan, Philip Francis
Person · 1923-2002

Philip Berrigan was a social activist and writer whose acts of civil disobedience during the Vietnam War made him a household name in the peace movement. Younger brother of Daniel Berrigan, he became a priest like his brother, but with the Josephites instead of the Jesuits. He would later marry and would be excommunicated. Throughout his life, he continued to protest nuclear proliferation in the United States and was often imprisoned for his actions.

Person · 1921-2016

Daniel Berrigan was a Catholic priest, social activist, and poet who entered the Society of Jesus (1939), was ordained (1952), and after studying in France (where he was influenced by the worker-priest movement), he taught at Catholic schools until becoming associate professor of theology at LeMoyne College (Syracuse, NY) (1957-1962). After serving as assistant editor of Jesuit Missions in New York (1963-1965), he became associate director of United Religious Work (1966-1969). Active in opposing the Vietnam War, he went with professor Howard Zinn to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to assist in obtaining the release of three American pilots (1968); the diary he kept during this mission, along with 11 poems, became «Night Flight to Hanoi» (1968). With his brother, Philip Berrigan, he gained national attention for destroying draft registration files in Catonsville, Md. (1968); in 1970 he was sentenced to three years in prison for this, but he went underground for several months until federal authorities arrested him on Block Island (off Rhode Island). After 18 months in prison, he was paroled in 1972 and participated with his brother in the first Plowshares Action (1980), a protest at the General Electric Plant at King of Prussia, Pa. Living among Jesuits, writing and conducting retreats, he was arrested regularly for his protest actions at weapons manufacturers and other sites (1980-1992). He wrote over 50 books, including «The Trial of the Catonsville 9» (1970), an autobiography (1987), and at least four films. (Source: Biography from April 16th, 2004, lecture write-up by Paul Pearson.)

Bergida, Hedy
Person

Hedy Bergida is writing as Senior Editor of Hawthorn Books of New York.

Berg, Marina de
Person · 1926-2019

Marina de Berg was a dancer and an actress in Paris. Born in Helsinki, Finland to parents of French and Russian orgin, she was orphaned at a young age. She achieved fame early in life as a ballerina and dancer and then as an actress primarily in the latter half of the 1940's. In the early 1950's and some professional setbacks, she questioned her place in the what she called the "wild frivolities" of life in the arts in Paris at the time. She recounts her decision to try a religious vocation with the Trappistine nuns in an autobiographical work, Trois ans à la Trappe in 1959 (translated into English as Heaven by the Hems: From Stage to Cloister, published by Sheed and Ward in 1961). She entered the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint-Joseph d'Ubexy, Charmes, France, in August of 1952. After a period of ill health and struggle with the rigors of the lifestyle, she left the nuns and began writing.

Bentley, Leilani
Person · 1948-

Leilani Bentley, at the time of writing, was composing a freshman English class paper on a comparison between Merton and Dag Hammarskjold on the topic of contemplation and peace. He writes from Mulliken, Michigan.

Bennett, (Ruth) Iris Weiss
Person

Iris Weiss Bennett was the widow of Merton's guardian in England, Dr. Tom Izod Bennett. Communication between the Bennett's and Merton was few and far between after Merton left Cambridge.

Person · 1930-2009

A student of Sr. Marialein Lorenz in Mobile, Alabama, Gloria Sylvester Bennett was part of the class who sent Merton some ordination gifts. She sends a book by her husband, Lerone Bennett, «Confrontation: Black and White». (Source: «The Road to Joy», p. 341.)

Benedict, Fr., O.C.S.O.
Person

Fr. Benedict is a Trappist monk from the Abbey of Our Lady of New Melleray in Dubuque, Iowa.

Benaudes, Teris
Person

Teris Benaudes is writing from Lima, Peru.

Belford, Lee Archer, Rev.
Person · 1913-

Lee Archer Belford is writing from the School of Education at New York University.

Beecher, John
Person · 1904-1980

John Beecher was a poet whose works often expressed social concerns such as civil rights, non-violence, and workers' rights. During the 1960's, his work on the publication «Ramparts» got him dubbed a "Communist" by Governor George Wallace of Alabama, which Beecher claimed was an "honor". He would return to Alabama, where he claimed the KKK wanted him dead, in 1966 to serve as a visiting professor at Miles College, a traditionally black institution. He and his wife Barbara were received back to the Catholic Church in 1965, and he describes the changes in the Church in Birmingham since his boyhood days there. He and Barbara were also art printers, and Merton approached them to do specialty additions of some of his work.

Beck, Dorothy
Person · 1928-

Dorothy Beck was the author of some Zen stories and poems that Merton published in «Monks Pond». At the time of writing, she was working the in the Archives Department at Dartmouth College.

Beaurin, Jean Marie, Fr.
Person

Fr. Jean Marie Beaurin is writing on behalf of Les Croisés de Notre Dame in Paris.

Batten, R. J., Fr., O.P.
Person · 1921-

Fr. R. J. Batten was a Dominican priest writing from Wahroonga, New South Wales.

Bates, Harvey H., Rev.
Person

The Rev. Harvey Bates was Co-Chaplain for the United Campus Christian Fellowship at Syracuse University in New York.

Batastini, Robert J.
Person

Robert Batastini is writing as Vice-President of the Gregorian Institute of America in Chicago, Illinois.

Bastos, María Luisa
Person

María Luisa Bastos is writing on behalf of the Argentinean magazine «Sur» ("the South"), founded by Victoria Ocampo.