THOMAS MERTON AND LEONARD COHEN: SOUL-BROTHERS AND SPIRITUAL GUIDES
Donald Grayston
O Canada
In 2009, it fell to me to give the presidential address to the International Thomas Merton Society’s general meeting in Rochester, NY (Grayston 2009). As the first Canadian president of the ITMS, I wanted to strike a Canadian note, if I could. That decided, the next question was how. I got my first clue when I read a review by Pico Iyer of Leonard Cohen’s then-recent book of poetry, Book of Longing (Iyer, 2008). In that review he makes a brief reference to Thomas Merton as the poet Cohen most resembles. So far so good, then: Leonard Cohen, a Canadian poet, visual artist and singersongwriter, with a resemblance to Thomas Merton.1
Then the next challenge: how to frame that resemblance. Happily, I ran across an earlier article in our national paper of record, The Globe and Mail, by Sarah Hampson, containing the inside–page heading, “No longer a