Hello and help!

[ingridcstl]

Hello everyone. My name is Ingrid and this is the first time visiting your site and posting as well.
I've decided to join because perhaps this community will help me find a poem that has been stuck in my head for years!

The particular thing about this poem is that I first came across it when I was 13 years old. It was inside one of my uncle's college literature textbooks-dating from the 70s.

I'm now 22 and finishing community college. One of the main reasons I want to read this poem again is because I remember a question at the end of the poem that asked the student what did the writer mean when he says "poor luther". When I was 13 this question bugged me and I figured now that I'm older I might be able to answer that question.

HOWEVER! I can't remember the name of the poem or the author:(
I do know several details that could help find it but I have exhausted my google abilities trying to find this poem.

Here are some details:
I thought the name of the poem was "A bat in the monastery". I can't seem to find any such poem with that name. The poem deals with monks in a monastery leading very dull and idle lives until a bat enters the monastery and they all get up and chase after the bat. In chasing the bat they become lively and active more so than they have ever been possibly in their entire lives. And there is of course the words "poor luther" involved.

I can't seem to remember anything else from it. It's a relativly short poem.
PLEASE HELP !

[quasimodo1]

To ingridcstl: I would love to attempt a proper search for your poem, but unfortunately all of the search engines are prejudiced to Martin Luther King Jr. to whom I mean no disrespect but the original Marin Luther, of the protestant reformation is a different matter and if you could produce a few more details, or background, or history, this might be do-able. q1

[ingridcstl]

Actually thanks to some database research I've found one possible candidate. The author's name is John L'Heureux and the poem seems to have been published in The Atlantic on August 1964 vol.214. The name is in fact "A Bat in a monastery". However, I haven't been able to find a book that has the poem in it or the poem itself anywhere online. But I have a feeling that this might be the poem I'm looking for.

[IrisRose]

Actually thanks to some database research I've found one possible candidate. The author's name is John L'Heureux and the poem seems to have been published in The Atlantic on August 1964 vol.214. The name is in fact "A Bat in a monastery". However, I haven't been able to find a book that has the poem in it or the poem itself anywhere online. But I have a feeling that this might be the poem I'm looking for.

Hi,
I used to teach this poem to high school students. It is not a peaceful poem about a nice bunch of monks. The bat is an innocent creature, which, unfortunately, symbolizes evil. The monks, of course, do not think of this. They just want the bat out of the room. Yet, they become frenzied and maddened, and the attempts to remove the bat result in an out of control free for all killing session. It is the monks who reveal the hidden violence and evil, and the innocent bat who suffers. There is much more to the poem than that, but that is a major theme