Carmen Bernos de Gasztold

Carmen Bernos de Gasztold (9 October 1919 – 23 September 1995) was a French poet who lived in a Benedictine abbey.

Her most famous collection is titled ''Prayers from the Ark''. The 1955 publication consists of short poems, each expressing a prayer from some animal on Noah's Ark. The book was translated into at least six languages, including an English version by Rumer Godden. Poet Marianne Moore praised the collection, but X. J. Kennedy criticized them as colorless and dull. Actor Marian Seldes recorded a spoken word album of the poems; composers Ivor R. Davies and Frieder Meschwitz set them to music.

A second volume of similar poems was published in 1965, entitled ''The Creatures Choir'', also translated by Godden.

She spent her childhood in the province of Bordeaux, France. She had five sisters and brothers. After World War II she went to live at the Benedictine Abbaye Saint Louis du Temple at Limon.

Her family were of Lithuanian descent (Gasztold being the Polish rendering of the Lithuanian name Goštautas). Provided by Wikipedia