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"One of the great original voices of our times—a pilgrim in search of beautiful innocence."—Jack Kerouac
"Robert Lax's poems [prove] yet again that the gift to be simple is the gift to be free, that less is more, and that least may sometimes be most."—John Ashbery
Poems (1962–1997) gathers thirty-five years of Robert Lax's work, rarely published and largely composed in solitude on the island of Patmos. Compiled and edited by the poet's former assistant John Beer, this selection reflects—through meditative sequences in striking vertical columns—Lax's rigorous attention to the world around him and his relentless aspiration to new ways of writing.
love &
death
are blood
& bone
love &
death
are bread
& stone
love &
death
are rose
& thorn
(love &
death
are sheep
& shorn)
Robert Lax (1915–2000) published dozens of volumes of poetry and prose with small presses and worked as an editor for the New Yorker, Jubilee, and PAX. From 1962 to the end of his life, he made his home in the Greek islands.
John Beer is the author of The Waste Land and Other Poems (Canarium, 2010), which won the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. For two years in the late 1990s, he served as literary assistant to Robert Lax. He currently lives and teaches in Oregon.
John Beer is the author of The Waste Land and Other Poems (Canarium, 2010), which won the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he lived on the Greek island of Patmos for two years in the late 1990s, where he served as literary assistant to Robert Lax. He currently teaches creative writing at Portland State University; previously, he reviewed theater for Time Out Chicago.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
New Poems 15
problem in design 63
three men 65
Nights & Days 69
[what/can/be/sep/a/rat/ed] 91
[one/star] 92
Light 94
[the giant/returns] 115
[fire/fire] 116
[now/i/will/send/them] 117
Jacob & the Angel 120
[i/still/like/the/way] 125
[ro/ber/to] 126
More Scales 129
japanese lesson 146
the brand new city 148
Sun Poems 154
[i/am/the/way/i/am] 162
[i/am/lost] 163
[Maude/my/dear] 164
[(a re/prise)] 165
Sea & Sky 167