Paul Quenon, O.C.S.O., is a Trappist monk who has lived for more than 50 years at the Abbey of Gethsemani in rural Kentucky where the famous monk and writer Thomas Merton was his novice master. Quenon is a poet and photographer whose words and images offer a glimpse of the life of modern-day monks. Sharing his wisdom and wit, he illustrates the monastic life as an ordinary life lived in extraordinary awareness of God’s presence.

Poetry is for Quenon “the language of the heart... the language of the imagination.” Writing poetry, he says, can be a meditative practice, as can photography. Quenon’s poetry collections include Laughter, My Purgatory (2002) and Monkswear (2008), a collection of poems and photographs that offers insight into what it is like to be a monk. He co-edited the creative writing collection Monkscript: Literature, Arts, Spirituality, and Photography (2002) and co-authored Holy Folly: Short and Tall Tales from the Abbey of Gethsemani (1999).