1960-02-08, HLS Antoninus to Merton, 'Thank you for sending me the copy of your Selected Poems. I had picked it up'

Br. Antoninus, who later went back to his birth name of William Everson, was a Californian poet associated with the San Francisco Renaissance and Beat movements, publishing under both his secular and religious names. He joined the Dominican Order in 1951 after a second failed marriage and remained a religious brother through his correspondence with Merton. In 1969, he left the Dominicans to enter a third marriage. He founded Lime Kiln Press and taught at University of California, Santa Cruz, which not only allowed him to continue his poetry, but also made him known as a master printer. (Sources: Nelson, Cary [ed]. An Online Journal and Multimedia Companion to the «Anthology of Modern American Poetry». Oxford University Press, 2000. ‹http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/everson/about.htm›.)