Thomas Merton on Poetry

Thomas Merton invokes "the solidarity of poets" as a defense of the innocence of wonder and of art. From Merton's Raids on the Unspeakable.

"The Solidarity of poets is not planned and welded together with tactical convictions or matters of policy, since these are affairs of prejudice, cunning, and design. Whatever his failures, the poet is not a cunning man. His art depends on an ingrained innocence which he would lose in business, in politics, or in too organized a form of academic life. The hope that rests on calculation has lost its innocence. We are banding together to defend our innocence."