Robert Lax
Encyclopedia
Robert Lax was an American
poet
, known in particular for his association with famed 20th century Trappist
monk
and writer
Thomas Merton
. A third friend of his youth, whose work sheds light on both Lax and Merton, was Ad Reinhardt
. During the latter period of his life, Lax resided on the island of Patmos
, Greece
. Considered by some to be a self-exiled hermit
, he nonetheless welcomed visitors to his home on the island, but did nothing to court publicity or expand his literary career or reputation.
in 1915, to Sigmund and Rebecca Lax, he returned to that town only weeks before he died in his sleep, September 26, 2000, at age 84.
Lax attended Columbia University
in New York City
, where he studied with the poet and critic Mark Van Doren
. Lax graduated in 1938. On leaving school, he worked for several mainstream magazines before he began his process of moving into a simple life. An expert juggler, he worked in a circus for some time during his initial years of wandering.
He lived the last 35 years of his life in the Greek islands, most recently on Patmos.
Lax wrote hundreds of poems and dozens of books in his long career, but never reached the level of recognition that some of his peers say he deserves. Jack Kerouac called Lax "one of the great original voices of our times ... a Pilgrim in search of beautiful innocence".
One of his most acclaimed works was Circus of the Sun, a book of poems metaphorically comparing the circus to Creation. Called by a critic in The New York Times Book Review "perhaps the greatest English language poem of this century", an excerpt was handed out to those attending Lax's funeral at St. Bonaventure University Sept. 29:
And in the beginning was love. Love made a sphere:
all things grew within it; the sphere then encompassed
beginnings and endings, beginning and end. Love
had a compass whose whirling dance traced out a
sphere of love in the void: in the center thereof
rose a fountain.
As a student at Columbia University in the late 1930s, Lax worked on the college humor magazine, Jester, with a classmate who became a close lifetime friend, Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and author of many spiritual books. Others on the Jester staff were Edward Rice, founder of Jubilee magazine, to which all three men contributed in the 1950s and ¹60s, and Ad Reinhardt, the painter.
The correspondence of Lax and Merton, written in a kind of comic argot, was published in 1978. In his biography, The Seven Storey Mountain, Merton describes Lax at a meeting with other Jester staff: "Taller than them all, and more serious, with a long face, like a horse, and a great mane of black hair on top of it, Bob Lax meditated on some incomprehensible woe."
Mark Van Doren, one of his Columbia professors, wrote that "The woe, I now believe, was that Lax could not state his bliss: his love of the world and all things, all persons in it."
Lax attempted to embody a sense of bliss in his writing.
Some of his poems, however, were whimsical:
"are you a visitor?" asked the dog, "yes," i answered. "only a visitor?" asked the dog. "yes," i answered. "take me with you," said the dog.
Over the years the poems became more and more minimilist, sometimes consisting of single words, even single syllables, running down page after page, often in varying colors.
Much of his output, while not outright spiritual, evoked religious thoughts. Many Western visitors to his tiny house in Patmos had their spirits recharged in the presence of his peaceful mien. William Maxwell even likened him to a saint.
"To the best of my knowledge," wrote Maxwell, "a saint is simply all the things that he is. If you placed him among the Old Testament figures above the south portal of Chartres, he wouldn't look odd."
Lax converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1943, five years after his friend Thomas Merton, and Rice was godfather to both men. In the 1940s, Lax worked on the staff of The New Yorker
, was poetry editor of [Time (magazine)|]] magazine, wrote screenplays in Hollywood, and taught at both the University of North Carolina and Connecticut College for Women.
He traveled with the Cristiani Brothers circus in 1949, which enabled him to generate material for Circus of the Sun. He helped start Jubilee, a lay Catholic magazine, under its founder, Edward Rice, in 1952 and became its roving editor before moving to the Greek Islands in 1962.
Lax moved back to Olean in 2000 after living abroad for more than 30 years. He died in his hometown at age 84.
as "perhaps the greatest English language poem of this century."
In his later poetry, Lax concentrated on simplicity and on making the most out of the fewest components. This makes him one of the patron saints of literary minimalism
. Some of his poems can go on for several pages using no more than four words and a punctuation mark. In some instances, Lax uses repetition of a few words either as a device for instilling a sense of serenity or to create a sense of surprise in the reader when a change in the pattern occurs. Despite the limited vocabulary of his poems, some create narratives, while others seem more like examples for use in meditative practice or even spiritual discipline. A good example of this abstract technique can be seen in the following untitled work, first published in New Poems (1960):
St. Bonaventure University
, near Olean, houses the main Robert Lax archives.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, known in particular for his association with famed 20th century Trappist
Trappists
The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance , or Trappists, is a Roman Catholic religious order of cloistered contemplative monks who follow the Rule of St. Benedict...
monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. was a 20th century Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion...
. A third friend of his youth, whose work sheds light on both Lax and Merton, was Ad Reinhardt
Ad Reinhardt
Adolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
. During the latter period of his life, Lax resided on the island of Patmos
Patmos
Patmos is a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea. One of the northernmost islands of the Dodecanese complex, it has a population of 2,984 and an area of . The highest point is Profitis Ilias, 269 meters above sea level. The Municipality of Patmos, which includes the offshore islands of Arkoi ,...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. Considered by some to be a self-exiled hermit
Hermit
A hermit is a person who lives, to some degree, in seclusion from society.In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament .In the...
, he nonetheless welcomed visitors to his home on the island, but did nothing to court publicity or expand his literary career or reputation.
Life
Born in Olean, New YorkOlean, New York
Olean is a city in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States. Olean is the largest city in Cattaraugus County, and serves as the financial, business, transportation and entertainment center of the county. It is one of the principal cities of the Southern Tier region of New York.The city is...
in 1915, to Sigmund and Rebecca Lax, he returned to that town only weeks before he died in his sleep, September 26, 2000, at age 84.
Lax attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he studied with the poet and critic Mark Van Doren
Mark Van Doren
Mark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and a critic, apart from being a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, and Beat Generation...
. Lax graduated in 1938. On leaving school, he worked for several mainstream magazines before he began his process of moving into a simple life. An expert juggler, he worked in a circus for some time during his initial years of wandering.
He lived the last 35 years of his life in the Greek islands, most recently on Patmos.
Lax wrote hundreds of poems and dozens of books in his long career, but never reached the level of recognition that some of his peers say he deserves. Jack Kerouac called Lax "one of the great original voices of our times ... a Pilgrim in search of beautiful innocence".
One of his most acclaimed works was Circus of the Sun, a book of poems metaphorically comparing the circus to Creation. Called by a critic in The New York Times Book Review "perhaps the greatest English language poem of this century", an excerpt was handed out to those attending Lax's funeral at St. Bonaventure University Sept. 29:
And in the beginning was love. Love made a sphere:
all things grew within it; the sphere then encompassed
beginnings and endings, beginning and end. Love
had a compass whose whirling dance traced out a
sphere of love in the void: in the center thereof
rose a fountain.
As a student at Columbia University in the late 1930s, Lax worked on the college humor magazine, Jester, with a classmate who became a close lifetime friend, Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and author of many spiritual books. Others on the Jester staff were Edward Rice, founder of Jubilee magazine, to which all three men contributed in the 1950s and ¹60s, and Ad Reinhardt, the painter.
The correspondence of Lax and Merton, written in a kind of comic argot, was published in 1978. In his biography, The Seven Storey Mountain, Merton describes Lax at a meeting with other Jester staff: "Taller than them all, and more serious, with a long face, like a horse, and a great mane of black hair on top of it, Bob Lax meditated on some incomprehensible woe."
Mark Van Doren, one of his Columbia professors, wrote that "The woe, I now believe, was that Lax could not state his bliss: his love of the world and all things, all persons in it."
Lax attempted to embody a sense of bliss in his writing.
Some of his poems, however, were whimsical:
"are you a visitor?" asked the dog, "yes," i answered. "only a visitor?" asked the dog. "yes," i answered. "take me with you," said the dog.
Over the years the poems became more and more minimilist, sometimes consisting of single words, even single syllables, running down page after page, often in varying colors.
Much of his output, while not outright spiritual, evoked religious thoughts. Many Western visitors to his tiny house in Patmos had their spirits recharged in the presence of his peaceful mien. William Maxwell even likened him to a saint.
"To the best of my knowledge," wrote Maxwell, "a saint is simply all the things that he is. If you placed him among the Old Testament figures above the south portal of Chartres, he wouldn't look odd."
Lax converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1943, five years after his friend Thomas Merton, and Rice was godfather to both men. In the 1940s, Lax worked on the staff of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, was poetry editor of [Time (magazine)|]] magazine, wrote screenplays in Hollywood, and taught at both the University of North Carolina and Connecticut College for Women.
He traveled with the Cristiani Brothers circus in 1949, which enabled him to generate material for Circus of the Sun. He helped start Jubilee, a lay Catholic magazine, under its founder, Edward Rice, in 1952 and became its roving editor before moving to the Greek Islands in 1962.
Lax moved back to Olean in 2000 after living abroad for more than 30 years. He died in his hometown at age 84.
Writings
Robert Lax's most famous book, Circus of the Sun, a meditation on creation, was heralded by The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
as "perhaps the greatest English language poem of this century."
In his later poetry, Lax concentrated on simplicity and on making the most out of the fewest components. This makes him one of the patron saints of literary minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
. Some of his poems can go on for several pages using no more than four words and a punctuation mark. In some instances, Lax uses repetition of a few words either as a device for instilling a sense of serenity or to create a sense of surprise in the reader when a change in the pattern occurs. Despite the limited vocabulary of his poems, some create narratives, while others seem more like examples for use in meditative practice or even spiritual discipline. A good example of this abstract technique can be seen in the following untitled work, first published in New Poems (1960):
- one bird
- two birds
- one bird
- two birds
- two birds
- one bird
- two birds
- one bird
- one bird
- two birds
- one bird
- two birds
- two birds
- one bird
- two birds
- one bird
- one
- Jerusalem, from "Love had a Compass"
- reading of lovely Jerusalem,
- lovely, ruined Jerusalem.
- we are brought to the port
- where the boats in line are
- and the high tower on the hill
- and the prows starting again
- into the mist.
- for we must seek
- by going down,
- down into the city
- for our song.
- deep into the city
- for our peace.
- for it is there
- that peace lies
- folded
- like a pool.
- there we shall seek:
- it is from there
- she'll flower.
- for lovely, ruined Jerusalem,
- lovely, sad Jerusalem
- lies furled
- under the cities
- of light.
- for we are only
- going down,
- only descending
- by this song
- to where the cities
- gleam in darkness,
- or curled like roots
- sit waiting
- at the undiscovered pool.
- what pressure
- thrusts us up
- as we descend?
- pressure of
- the city's singing,
- pressure of
- the song
- she hath withheld.
- hath long withheld.
- for none
- would hear
- her.
St. Bonaventure University
St. Bonaventure University
St. Bonaventure University is a private, Franciscan Catholic university, located in Allegany, Cattaraugus County, New York, United States. It has roughly 2,400 undergraduate and graduate students....
, near Olean, houses the main Robert Lax archives.
Literature
Books- Sigrid Hauff: A Line in Three Circles. The Inner Biography of Robert Lax & A Comprehensive Catalog of His Works, BoD, Norderstedt, 2007, ISBN 978-3833484803
See also
- List of American poets
- Anti-war movement
- Hermits
- Vietnam WarVietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
External links
- http://www.hermitary.com/articles/lax.html
- http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/sep99/20a.html
- http://www.thomasmertonsociety.org/biddle.htm