A few images from lesser-known Lax publications I found on the shelves in his old Patmos house while staying there this past winter.
This post appeared originally in the Spring 2024 issue of The Robert Lax Newsletter. To subscribe to this free quarterly publication–with news of Lax-related events, articles, quotes, and images–click here.
Steve Georgiou was one of the young people who spent time with Lax on Patmos in the 1980s and 1990s. He went on to write three books about him, including The Way of the Dreamcatcher: Spirit Lessons with Robert Lax, a collection of interviews.
Last summer, Father John Dear, a leading Catholic activist for nonviolence, hosted a Zoom chat in which Georgiou talked at length about his relationship with Lax and his views on Lax’s life and importance. You can view it on YouTube by clicking below.
This post appeared originally in the Spring 2024 issue of The Robert Lax Newsletter. To subscribe to this free quarterly publication–with news of Lax-related events, articles, quotes, and images–click here.
Almost 40 years have passed since I first set foot in Robert Lax’s small house above the port town of Skala on Patmos. Three months ago, I had a chance to return for the first time in 18 years and stay in it, thanks to the kindness of those who own it now.
I went back to Patmos because I’m writing a book called An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life (forthcoming from Monkfish Publishing, spring 2025). Much of the book is about the two months I lived on Patmos in 1985 when I was 27. I spent the first in total solitude and the second in a modified solitude that included time with Lax.
My purpose in returning was to see how different living in that kind of solitude would be as an older man. (I’m only three years younger now than Lax was when I met him.) Staying in the house of a man who lived every day in solitude was a bonus. Few of Lax’s things remain there, but one wall of the small main room is still lined with his books.
Looking through his shelves brought several thoughts to mind:
I was glad to see that Lax’s house had changed in the 24 years since his death. These days, a painter stays and works in it for much of the year. It’s a living space where creativity still takes place. But it was good to see his books there too, to find his spirit in them. The one other obvious reminder of him was a poster on the wall with his lovely face above one of his best-loved poems:
turn
ing
the
jun
gle
in
to
a
gar
den
with
out
des
troy
ing
a
sin
gle
flow
er
–Michael N. McGregor
I recently acquired a copy of the Columbia University yearbook, The Columbian, from 1938, the year Robert Lax graduated. It shows Lax being voted “best writer” by the senior class and serving as editor of the Columbia Review
He also appears in the university’s Hall of Fame for 1938.
Here’s his regular senior class listing.
I like this yearbook line about his poetry in the Review.
Note: The information and images in this post appeared originally in the Robert Lax Newsletter. To receive this free publication in your inbox four times a year, sign up on the left-hand side of this page.
I just sent out the fall edition of the Lax Newsletter with this photograph in it of Robert Lax playing the bongo drums when he was quite young. I don’t know where or when the photograph was taken, or by whom, but it is one of my favorites of him. I think it shows his true inner spirit at an early age.
The photograph came to me from Jeffrey Weinberg, who used a version of it on the cover of his 2014 letterpress publication Dear Jack: Heart Not Head. The limited-edition book features an intimate letter Lax sent to Jack Kerouac when they were good friends in the 1950s. You can purchase a copy, with an introduction by Lax archivist Paul Spaeth, from Jeffrey’s Water Row Books eBay page.
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Today is the day Robert Lax died 23 years ago. It’s hard to believe he’s been gone that long. Here’s a brief quote from him (from my biography of him), in memoriam:
what a writer writes should have some relation (though not necessrily a discoverable relation) to the meaning of his life.
and the meaning of our lives should have some relation (to the meaning of the life of the world)
but the meaning of our lives, and what we write, and what we do, is somehow in us from the beginning: in this sense, the child’s only duty is to live and grow
I found this beautiful–and beautifully published–poem by Robert Lax in my collection of his works. The original is printed on three of four sides of two-foot-tall fine paper with cover sheets that are disintegrating. I don’t know who printed it or when.
Father Dan Riley, OFM, reports that he and a small group of others from different faith traditions have been discussing the establishment of a new center dedicated to Lax and Merton and committed to civil dialogue in an increasingly uncivil age. The center would probably be housed at the Mt. Irenaeus Fransciscan Mountain Community Father Dan founded near St. Bonaventure University many years ago. Here’s the community’s description of its location:
Mt. Irenaeus rests on nearly 400 acres of beautiful land in the Allegheny hills of Southwestern New York State, with seven cabins, large community House of Peace, Holy Peace Chapel, 10 miles of trails, labyrinth garden, reflective pond and other sacred outdoor spaces for contemplation.”
One possible design for the center is an octagon, to reflect that shape’s importance in several traditions. The building would also incorporate some parts of the Marcus cottage where Lax, Merton and their friends gathered during college summers, writing, making music, and practicing debating important matters in community.
Riley and others have been trying for years to find a way to move the Marcus cottage from the hills above Olean down near campus. Unfortunately, the cottage hasn’t been maintained, so it isn’t feasible (or cost-effective) to move the whole thing. Instead, they’ve secured pieces of the cottage to put in the center: the mantel over the living room fireplace and the sailing ship model above it, as well as the doors and hinges from the bedrooms Lax and Merton slept in. An expert is looking at the cottage to see if other parts are salvageable too.
According to Father Dan, the center would be a place outside the Mt. Irenaeus Franciscan structures where people from different backgrounds could talk about issues of any kind, whether they came out of a faith tradition or not. But it would be “a mystical place, not just dialogic,” he says. Its core value would come from the root of the word “conversation,” which means not just talking but turning or changing together.
If you’re interested in being connected to the project or just knowing more about it, you can write to the Mt. Ireneaus office coordinator, Michelle Marcellin, at mmarc@sbu.edu.
A major work of art honoring Robert Lax has been unveiled in his hometown of Olean, New York.
Painted on the walls of the Library & Liberal Arts Center on the Olean campus of Jamestown Community College, murals inspired by Lax’s circus poems now grace the spot where his father, Siggie, took him to watch the circus pull into town when he was a boy. (Note the railroad tracks in the foreground in the picture above.)
According to the Olean Times-Herald, more than 25 artists and volunteers helped “world-renowned muralist” Meg Saligman with the installation, and another 1,000 community members participated in “various summer paint day events.”
“Titled ‘Vantage Point: Our Valley of the Sun,’ the mural’s name is inspired by poet Robert Lax’s famous work, ‘Circus of the Sun,'” the newspaper reports. The project was supported by several local and regional organizations and is meant to celebrate those who live and work in the area. (One of Lax’s childhood homes once stood just steps away.)
Saligman–who grew up in Olean and went on to paint some of the largest murals in the United States–combined her own research with interviews with community members to come up with the murals’ designs. It was the discovery of the poems of Olean’s homegrown poet, however, that brought everything together.
To read more about the Olean mural, click here. To see more of Seligman’s work, visit her website: megsaligman.com.
[This post appeared first in the Robert Lax Newsletter. To sign up for this free bimonthly (or so) mailing, click here and enter your email address on the left-hand side of the page.]
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