Frances Ward photographer.
Welcome to SpiritBookWord, a website dedicated to my work as a poet, critic and teacher. In these electronic pages, you will find a collection of my poems, essays, and thoughts on art and spirituality.
Born in Belfast in the north of Ireland and educated at McMaster University (MA in English literature), I'm a reader, poet and essayist - blogger as well. I taught literature for 30 years at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario. Long time contributor to the Hamilton Spectator and Hamilton Arts and Letters. Culture Critic for The Nancy Duffy Show, I used to write book reviews for The Globe and Mail and The Literary Review of Canada. Former columnist for Dialogue Magazine, I live in Hamilton with my wife Cheryl and dog Sophia.
Critical Comment
"J.S. Porter is our most generous, elegant essayist. He is also one of our very best critics. Wisdom, perception, humour, wide reading, passion, quirky intelligence, a love of style - he has it all."
--B.W. Powe
Important Links
To know more about me, you can also read my work at these sites:
- Late Talk on Air, With Nancy Duffy.
- Catherine Tekakwitha and Beautiful Losers. at the Leonard Cohen Forum
- Requiem for a Suicidal Genius, at Gordon Sheppard's website...
- The Last Interview: Gordon Sheppard in conversation with J.S. Porter, at Hamilton Arts and Letters...
- The Merton Journal - Earlier Editions.
- Thomas Merton and Adolf Eichmann, Advent 2007
- Notes on Robert Lax
- Robert Lax on Thomas Merton, Easter 2011
- Shakespeare in Politics, Hamilton Spectator, August 29, 2018.
- Intimate Details, a column for Dialogue Magazine.
- The Divine and Embodied Feminine: A Dialogue, by Susan McCaslin, JS Porter (From Conversations.org)
- A Canadian visionary: a new book digs into the influences on Grant's thought.
J.S. Porter's Latest Book, With Susan McCaslin: Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton's Dance with the Feminine
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.
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