Robert Lax was an American poet, known in particular for his association with Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton.
14 Facts About Robert Lax
1.
2.
Robert Lax was born in Olean, New York, to Sigmund and Rebecca Robert Lax.
3.
Robert Lax's father had immigrated to the United States from Austria at the age of sixteen.
4.
When Robert Lax was in eighth grade, the family moved to Elmhurst, Queens, New York.
5.
Robert Lax first met the future painter Ad Reinhardt at Elmhurst's Newtown High School.
6.
Robert Lax attended Columbia University in New York City, where he studied with the poet and critic Mark Van Doren.
7.
Robert Lax converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1943, five years after Thomas Merton, and Rice was godfather to both men.
8.
Meanwhile, Robert Lax had helped Rice start Jubilee, a lay Catholic magazine, in 1952 and became its roving editor.
9.
In 1969, Robert Lax received the National Council of the Arts Award.
10.
Robert Lax wrote hundreds of poems and dozens of books in his long career, but never reached the level of recognition that some of his peers say he deserves.
11.
Robert Lax certainly shared an interest in artistic procedures with his friend Ad Reinhardt and reflected that artist's series of black paintings in his own "Homage to Reinhardt":.
12.
Robert Lax owed as much to eastern as to western systems of spirituality.
13.
For several years, Robert Lax practiced the method of meditation developed by Eknath Easwaran, and near the end of his life, Robert Lax's only reading each day was from Easwaran.
14.
In 2018 Kile Smith composed The Arc in the Sky on nine texts of Robert Lax, described as a 65-minute pilgrimage for unaccompanied choir.