Show Notes
Today’s show features a conversation I was fortunate to have with poets and authors Susan McCaslin and J. S. Porter to discuss their latest collaborative work, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine.
It’s funny. Our discussion fell in the shadows of a looming deadline for my master’s thesis. It was a stressful time. And yet, our conversation became a calming source. Hearing Susan and John talk about their work was inspired. Not to mention, they were the most delightful guides into the life of Thomas Merton.
About the Book:
Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine is a unique, unified, multi-genre work that includes dialogue, imaginary letters, poems, and reflective essays by two established Canadian poets. Taking cues from Merton himself, Susan McCaslin and John Porter establish a playful, jazzy, dialogic tone – superabundantly alive. This book invites participation for those who already know Merton’s work and for those who are meeting this whole and broken, prophetic, whimsical, paradoxical prophet and visionary for the first time.
About Today’s Guests
Susan McCaslin is a Canadian poet who lives in Fort Langley, British Columbia and is the author of fifteen volumes of poetry and nine books. She has a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia and has taught English and Creative Writing at Douglas College in B.C.
J.S. Porter, whom I know as Dear John, has written for InRetro Magazine and has been a long-time contributor to the Hamilton Spectator and Hamilton Arts and Letters. He has also written book reviews for The Globe and Mail and The Literary Review of Canada and was a columnist for Dialogue Magazine.
John was born in Belfast, in the north of Ireland, and attended McMaster University, where he earned a Master’s in English literature. He then worked as a literature teacher for 30 years at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario.
Thomas Merton was a writer and Trappist monk who authored more than seventy books of poetry, personal journals, collections of letters, and writings on peace, social criticism, and justice. He was born in 1915 and died in 1968… His most renowned works include The Seven Storey Mountain and New Seeds of Contemplation.