Robert Lax

The American poet Robert Lax belongs to the generation of Thomas Merton, Beat poetry, Abstract Expressionism, and the compositions of John Cage. Yet he stands out as this era’s most intriguing minimalist poet, gaining this reputation through a constant questioning of the universe and our idea about it. His poetry varies from fables and parables to clear-cut columns of words, from his account of a day at the circus as a vision of creation to his own insistent and mystical search for truth.

33 Poems presents the quintessential gathering of Lax’s work, including Sea & Sky and The Circus of the Sun, “perhaps the greatest English-language poem of this century” (The New York Times).

Edited by Thomas Kellein

A Hermit’s Guide to Home Economics combines three long poems Robert Lax composed on the Island of Patmos, where he lived apart from the world. Lax writes humorously about his “hermit” life, as if he were King Solomon doing a stand-up routine. But he also writes like a mystic whose surroundings speak to him, and he uses the whole field of the page to explore the full potential of the word as image and the poet as citizen.

I just won’t talk. I won’t let on that I see what goes on in the world.