Robert Lax (1915-2000) |
"begin by being", "(life) is not holy" from A Thing That Is (1997)
When I was looking up peace poems by Thomas Merton, I came across Arthur W. Biddle's Thomas Merton & Robert Lax: A Friendship in Letters. I didn't know that Robert Lax and Thomas Merton met as students at Columbia University in 1935 and became lifelong friends. When I found a photo of Lax on the back flap cover of his 33 Poems (1988), he looked like Saint Jerome or Saint Anthony, one of the Desert Fathers. I like Lax's minimalist style, his string bean poems appear as thin Giacometti statues. I'm including three such poems from Lax's A Thing That Is (1997). By putting one word per line, and often splitting a word into several lines (ex-is-tence), Lax slows down our reading of his poems. Perhaps this is intended as a meditation exercise in patience (Poem 10). Poem 27 is my favorite Lax poem. It reminds me of Plotinus's vision in his Enneads that all beauty has a divine origin. After falling in love with Robert Lax's poetry, I received two handwritten letters from Steve Georgiou postmarked in San Francisco about his book The Way of the Dreamcatcher: Spirit Lessons with Robert Lax: Poet, Peacemaker, Sage. I was too busy to respond, but attended his talk at the Stanford Bookstore (Oct. 4, 2005). It was indeed a treat to see his slide presentation of Robert Lax in Patmos and hearing Lax reading his poem on the Virgin Mary. (Peter Y. Chou) |
What
be
(life)
Poem 3
is
be
ing
what
is
ex
is
tence
can
the
rab
bit
be
said
to
be
if
it
is
dead
?
we
say
it
is
dead
what
is
is
that
?
Poem 10
gin
by
be
ing
pa
tient
with
your
self
la
ter
you
can
be
pa
tient
with
oth
ers
(name
of
the
game
is
pa
tience)
Poem 27
is
not
hol
y
be
cause
it
is
beau
ti
ful
it
is
beau
ti
ful
be
cause
it
is
hol
y
Robert Lax (1915-2000),
A Thing That Is, Poems 3, 27
(Ed. Paul J. Spaeth, Overlook Press,
Woodstock, NY, 1997, pp. 23, 47)
Steve T. Georgiou's Talk
("The Way of the Dreamcatcher:
Spirit Lessons with Robert Lax: Poet, Peacemaker, Sage")
Robert Lax, 84, Minimalist Poet Known for Experimental Forms
(By Eric Pace, New York Times, October 24, 2000)
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