Love Had a Compass: Journals and Poetry

by Robert Lax

Ever generation of poets seems to harbor its own hidden genius, one whose stature and brilliance come to light after his talent has already been achieved and exercised. The same drama of obscurity and nuance that attended the discovery of Emily Dickinson and Wallace Stevens is suggested by the career of Robert Lax. An expatriate American whose work to date — more than forty books — has been published mostly in Europe, this 85-year-old poet built a following in the U.S. among figures as widespread as Mark Van Doren, e. e. cummings, Jack Kerouac, and Sun Ra. The works in Love Had a Compass represent every stage of Lax's development as a poet, from his early years in the 1940s as a staff writer for The New Yorker to his present life on the Greek Island of Patmos. An inveterate wanderer, Lax's own sense of himself as both exile and pilgrim is carefully evoked in his prose journals and informs the pages of the Marseille Diaries, published here for the first time. Together with the poems, they provide the best portrait available to date of one of the most striking and original poets of our age.

Genres: Poetry

254 pages, Hardcover

First published May 17, 1996

About the author

Robert Lax (30 November, 1915 in Olean, New York – 26 September, 2000 in Olean) was an American poet, known in particular for his association with Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton. Another friend of his youth was the painter Ad Reinhardt. After a long period of drifting from job to job about the world, Lax settled on the island of Patmos during the latter part of his life. Considered by some to be a self-exiled hermit, he nonetheless welcomed visitors to his home, but did nothing to court publicity or expand his literary career or reputation.

Reviews

[Evan Ziegenfus]

the wind tugged at the water
the rain tugged at the clouds

water slapped against the quays

oil rode upon the water
the grey sun rode the wave

raymond approached down the quay
a thing of terror

his shapeless felt hat
made him tall

his many coats
were hunched about
his shoulders

an ichabod man
a walking windmill
a satanesque
clochard

panhandling
panhandling
up and down
the quays

he terrified
his would-be
benefactors

as though
the day itself
had taken form
and now
was raymond

a great
rudder-nose

a great
(prognathous)
jaw

as sad
as the day
he wept
as now
the sky
as now
the sea

five francs
twenty francs
from bewildered
citizens
and frightened
strangers

he dropped them
into a formless
outer pocket

and when
there were
enough
would buy
white wine


le philosophe

his expression too
was philosophic

he lifted
a single eyebrow
and looked calmly
off to sea

his cheeks
were ruddy
and his face
was of the north

blue-eyed
a bright
blue eye
his beard
was white
and short;
his beret
at a smart
(but not
a rakish)
angle

on his left foot,
a worker’s shoe,
and on his right
a backless bed-
room slipper

his coat
an army coat
was belted in
and billowed out
an inch
above his ankles

he stood
beneath a leaking swing
and looked beyond the fairground
toward the sea

(i tried
to take his picture
and he scowled)
and muttered
that police-informers
often ended
in the bay.

…


—Lax, from “Port City: The Marseille Diaries”

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 stars for Circus of the Sun, five for most of the rest! Lax was a superb poet, and even the sometimes flagging journal has a great deal to recommend it. The Fables and the Episodes are cool, and the Marseille sequence is a window into a questing open life.

[Nat Baldino · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 for enjoyment not how good it really is—-I just recognize that for the most part it’s not my style.