Thomas Lux in 2008. Photo by Ful.cleane. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikipedia.
Thomas Lux (born December 10, 1946) is an American poet.
Life[]
Lux was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, son of a milkman and a Sears & Roebuck switchboard operator, neither of whom graduated from high school. Lux was raised in Massachusetts on a dairy farm. He was, according to those who knew him in high school, very good at baseball, basketball and golf. Classmates also recall that he had a " Terrific sense of humor. "
He graduated from Emerson College in Boston, where he was also poet in residence from 1972-1975. His first book — Memory's Handgrenade — was published shortly after. Since 1975, Lux has been a member of the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College. Lux is also a core faculty member of the Warren Wilson M.F.A. Program for Writers. In 1996 he was a visiting professor at University of California, Irvine.
His poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and many other anthologies.
He holds the Bourne chair in poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and runs their Poetry at Tech program.
Writing[]
"The making of art, good art, whether it be poems, paintings, or musical compositions, is a task that requires a kind of engineering, a kind of architecture, and vast technical skills. Good art, historically, is made; it doesn't just happen – it's a result of planning, rigor, attention, intuition, trial and error, discipline, and the luck that sometimes comes when all of the above are applied. We need poetry now more than ever. Poetry, and all of the arts, can help us cope and understand the world around us. The arts allow us, and allow us access to, human expression, a precious and necessary freedom. Poetry, the act of making or reading a poem, is by nature an affirmative act, an act of creation and possibilities." - Thomas Lux[1]
Recognition[]
Lux is a former Guggenheim Fellow and three times a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1995 Lux received the $50,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his sixth collection, Split Horizons.
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- The Land Sighted (chapbook). Roslindale, MA: Pym-Randall, 1970.
- Memory's Handgrenade(chapbook). Roslindale, MA: Pym-Randall, 1972.
- Madrigal on the Way Home (chapbook). 1976 [2]
- Poems: The Glassblower's Breath. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland State University, 1976.
- Sunday: Poems. Boston: Houghton, 1979.
- Like a Wide Anvil from the Moon the Light. New York: Black Market Press, 1980.
- Massachusetts (chapbook). Roslindale, MA: Pym-Randall, 1981.
- Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy (chapbook). Bristol, RI: Ampersand, 1983.
- Half Promised Land. Boston: Houghton, 1986.
- The Drowned River: New poems. Boston: Houghton, 1990.
- A Boat in the Forest (chapbook). Easthampton, MA: Adastra Press, 1992.
- Pecked to Death by Swans (chapbook). Easthampton, MA: Adastra Press, 1993.
- Split Horizon. Boston: Houghton, 1994.
- The Blind Swimmer: Selected early poems, 1970-1975. Easthampton, MA: Adastra Press, 1996.
- New and Selected Poems, 1975-1995. Boston: Houghton, 1997.
- Street of Clocks. Boston: Houghton, 2001.
- The Cradle Place. Boston: Houghton, 2004.
- God Particles. Boston: Houghton, 2008.
Edited[]
- Robert Winner, The Sanity of Earth and Grass (co-editor & author of foreword). Gardiner, ME: Tilbury House, 1994.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.[3]
Audio / video[]
"Refrigerator" by Thomas Lux
- Thomas Lux Reading (CD). Aspen, CO: Aspen Writers' Foundation, 1978.
- Lecture: On the poetry of Bill Knott (CD). Aspen, CO: Aspen Writers' Foundation, 1978.
- Thomas Lux: A Reading February 20, 1980 (audiobook). Tucson, AZ: Tucson Poetry Center, 1980.
- Berryman's Elegies (audiobook). Swannanoa, NC: Warren Wilson College, 1997.
Except where noted, discographical information courtesy WorldCat.[4]
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ Quoted in "The Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry: Thomas Lux," Poetry at Tech, Georgia Tech, GATech.edu, Web, Jan. 26, 2012.
- ↑ Thomas Lux, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Web, Nov. 2, 2012.
- ↑ Thomas Lux b. 1946, Poetry Foundation, Web, Nov. 2, 2012.
- ↑ Search results = au:Thomas Lux + audiobook, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Oct. 15, 2015.
External links[]
- Poems
- "I Love You Sweetheart"
- Thomas Lux at Poetry 180: "Remora, Remora," "To Help the Monkey Cross the River"
- Two poems in the Cortland Review
- Thomas Lux profile & 6 poems at the Academy of American Poets.
- Thomas Lux b. 1946 at the Poetry Foundation.
- A few poems by Thomas Lux at Plagiarist.com.
- Thomas Lux at PoemHunter (16 poems).
- Audio / video
- Books
- Thomas Lux at Amazon.com
- About
- Profile at Georgia Tech.
- Love It Hard: Thomas Lux On Poetry, profile and interview with Sally Molini in Cerise Press, 2009
- Online interview with Lux, Cortland Review, 2009.
- Thomas Lux: Poet interview at Writers' Digest, 2013
- Details, Details: An interview with Thomas Lux by Peter Swanson, 2014
| This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia. (view article). (view authors). |
|