Overview

What might briefly tumble through a monks mind, or be hard chiseled over a span of years, what might be gleaned while ranging high along the Kentucky knobs, or what quietly emerges while sitting in the dark before dawn-these are the inner and outer landscapes of the religious poems found in Unquiet Vigils. From nocturnal Vigils to close listening to the liturgy of crickets, these are litanies of love and life, work, patience, and prayer. These poems are collected from over two decades of writing, and seasoned with the savor of five decades of living a monastic life.

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9781612615608

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Here is what it says on the back: What tumbles through a monk's mind in the course of a day? What might be gleaned while ranging high along the Kentucky knobs, or quietly emerge while sitting in the dark before dawn? Inner and outer landscapes form the poems in Unquiet Vigil. These are very nice, very artful and quite moving; I enjoyed his opening essay, too. This poet-monk has been at this a long time; his Novice Master, Fr. Louis, was also a renowned poet. You may know him by his more public name, Thomas Merton. And, there is a blurb on the back by Maurice Manning who says it is a joy to have this book. --Hearts and Minds

Vigil-keeping is an ancient Christian practice handed down through the generations as one way of dealing with troublesome patches of difficulty, doubt, depression, uncertainty, and waiting. This sturdy spiritual path is more relevant than ever but not many believers are familiar with its intentional aim to abide, trust, and embrace the darkness while looking for the light. Hard times and the challenge of overcoming obstacles both enable us to discern the loving presence of God and be tutored in the art of active waiting. These benefits come to mind while reading Paul Quenon's author note in Unquiet Vigil: The monastic life is a lifelong practice of both watching and listening. After 55 years at this I am still a beginner. My vigils are difficult, my listening partial. . . . These poems are a circling around silence to see and watch what is heard, a use of words to fix in hearing what is not quite seen. Writing has been for me, in a broad sense, a way of vigil-keeping, of making the watch something more of my own. The poems in this stellar collection of contemplative gems are arranged into thematic sections on Bells of the Hours, Afternoons with Emily, Monkswear, Laughter My Purgatory, and Terrors of Paradise. On the spiritual discipline of watching, we were especially moved by Brother Quenon's reverence for little birds who come in plain jackets and sing so extravagantly. We were touched by a poem where the author pays tribute to Jesus for having such exquisite care / not to disturb the surface of water / that he could walk on it. And we loved the poet's appreciation of the ever-dutiful door groans / with world weariness, / behind me closing / slows and thumps to / conclusion. We are grateful to Brother Quenon for Primal Prayer where he mourns the death of children in Bagdad as the bombs fall; he laments, Only the infant wail / is truth. Born in West Virginia, Br. Paul Quenon entered the Trappists in 1958 at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where Thomas Merton was his novice master. He has been publishing poems and photographs for the last quarter century. He still lives as a monk at Gethsemani. --Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality & Practice

These poems pinpoint the tensions inherent in a spiritual life. The self must be present and yet the self must be willing to be negated. One seeks knowledge but also freedom from knowledge. One must be at home with what is said through silence. These are some of the mysteries of faith and the words of these poems invite me into them. By reading, we partake of these words and much more. It is a joy to have this book. -- Maurice Manning, author of The Common Man, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, and The Gone and the Going Away The poems of Unquiet Vigil rise out of a more intense experience of reality, evoke aspects of that reality not universally acknowledged, and re-express them in exquisite and economical language. -- Michael Casey, OCSO, author of Stranger to the City

Unquiet Vigil is a collection of new and previously published poems. Quenon's style has a succinct, haiku-like rhythm of two to four beats per line. Indeed, the new poems include twenty-three uncollected haiku. Traditional haiku, Japanese poems of seventeen syllables, often cite a season of the year or a natural element. In the same way, Quenon's clipped verse invites us to join him as he listens to the story behind the story, especially from birds, which fly and sing throughout his poems. As robins smartly step, larks ascend, marsh hawks tilt and sway, and brown-winged birds sing extravagantly, we are summoned to greater awareness of how God's world speaks once we begin to pay attention with care. In some poems, Quenon imagines what it would be like to live the life of a sleepy serpent, a sad possum, or a hysterical bat creaming echoes in the dark. Nocturnal animals remind us that night is a special time for keeping vigil. Night is when, Webs of clouds weave dreams across the face of the moon (85). Take your time with the poems of Quenon and Martin. Let them call you awareness of your own struggles with quietude, stillness, and silence. You may discover, by your own intuition, a story behind the story, writing behind the writing, just waiting to be told. In the second paragraph of his introduction to Unquiet Vigil, poet Paul Quenon makes clear that he writes poetry as a means to the end of enhancing his monastic vocation. In that self-knowledge lies the key to this collection's resonance and depth. The poems give voice to a tautology, between the poems and the life - they're seamless and inseparable - a unity, a precious and extraordinary thing to encounter in a culture founded in the separation of body and mind, flesh and spirit. In them we engage the reality of a Trappist monk who has dedicated fifty-eight of his seventy-five years to the single-hearted love and praise of what I can only call God. I am perforce aware of the abuse heaped on that word, of the atrocities committed for its sake. But the poems of Unquiet Vigil bring me again and again into to the real, living Presence. Often I think that all truth is found in paradox. These poems find their truths in the tension between a life lived behind enclosure walls and a purity of truth that only an authentic life can generate. The life is cloistered, sure - but from ongoing, never-ending contemplation arises a fuller and more robust world than most of us could imagine - or bear to live out. Unquiet Vigil arises from and gives us, its readers, that world. --- Fenton Johnson is the author of the new novel The Man Who Loved Birds (University Press of Kentucky) and teaches in the creative writing programs at the University of Arizona and Spalding University. Here is what it says on the back: What tumbles through a monk's mind in the course of a day? What might be gleaned while ranging high along the Kentucky knobs, or quietly emerge while sitting in the dark before dawn? Inner and outer landscapes form the poems in Unquiet Vigil. These are very nice, very artful and quite moving; I enjoyed his opening essay, too. This poet-monk has been at this a long time; his Novice Master, Fr. Louis, was also a renowned poet. You may know him by his more public name, Thomas Merton. And, there is a blurb on the back by Maurice Manning who says it is a joy to have this book. -Hearts and Minds Vigil-keeping is an ancient Christian practice handed down through the generations as one way of dealing with troublesome patches of difficulty, doubt, depression, uncertainty, and waiting. This sturdy spiritual path is more relevant than ever but not many believers are familiar with its intentional aim to abide, trust, and embrace the darkness while looking for the light. Hard times and the challenge of overcoming obstacles both enable us to discern the loving presence of God and be tutored in the art of active waiting. These benefits come to mind while reading Paul Quenon's author note in Unquiet Vigil: The monastic life is a lifelong practice of both watching and listening. After 55 years at this I am still a beginner. My vigils are difficult, my listening partial. . . . These poems are a circling around silence to see and watch what is heard, a use of words to fix in hearing what is not quite seen. Writing has been for me, in a broad sense, a way of vigil-keeping, of making the watch something more of my own. The poems in this stellar collection of contemplative gems are arranged into thematic sections on Bells of the Hours, Afternoons with Emily, Monkswear, Laughter My Purgatory, and Terrors of Paradise. On the spiritual discipline of watching, we were especially moved by Brother Quenon's reverence for little birds who come in plain jackets and sing so extravagantly. We were touched by a poem where the author pays tribute to Jesus for having such exquisite care / not to disturb the surface of water / that he could walk on it. And we loved the poet's appreciation of the ever-dutiful door groans / with world weariness, / behind me closing / slows and thumps to / conclusion. We are grateful to Brother Quenon for Primal Prayer where he mourns the death of children in Bagdad as the bombs fall; he laments, Only the infant wail / is truth. Born in West Virginia, Br. Paul Quenon entered the Trappists in 1958 at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where Thomas Merton was his novice master. He has been publishing poems and photographs for the last quarter century. He still lives as a monk at Gethsemani. -Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality & Practice

Author Information

Born in West Virginia, Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO entered the Trappists in 1958 at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where Thomas Merton was his Novice Master. He has been publishing poems and photographs for the last twenty years.

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