js-porter-portrait.jpg 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:




J.S. Porter's Latest Book, With Susan McCaslin: Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton's Dance with the Feminine

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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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