33 Poems (New Directions)

A selection of the greatest poems from one of poetry’s most beloved mystics

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).

 

Robert Lax (1915–2000) was born in Olean, New York. At Columbia University he studied with Mark Van Doren and there began friendships with his classmates Thomas Merton and the painter Ad Reinhardt. He then worked as a university lecturer, film critic, script writer, and editor at the New Yorker. In 1962 he moved to the Greek islands, where he spent most of the last four decades of his life.