A Hermit's Guide to Home Economics
By Robert Lax
2015
First Published
4.23
Average Rating
64
Number of Pages
Three medium-length poems by America's forgotten hermit poet and master of concrete minimalism. Robert Lax’s Hermit’s Guide to Home Economics combines three long poems the poet composed on the Island of Patmos, where he lived a life separated from the rest of the world in the natural setting of that desert isle. Lax writes humorously about his “hermit” life, as if he were King Solomon doing a stand-up routine. But he also writes like a mystic whose surroundings speak to him, and uses the whole field of the page to explore the full potential of the word as image, and the poet as citizen.
Avg Rating
4.23
Number of Ratings
26
5 STARS
46%
4 STARS
35%
3 STARS
15%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Robert Lax
Author · 7 books
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.
