{"id":107534,"date":"2017-02-07T18:46:02","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T23:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=107534"},"modified":"2017-02-08T10:54:47","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T15:54:47","slug":"thomas-lux-1946-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/07\/thomas-lux-1946-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Lux, 1946\u20132017"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The poet Thomas Lux died this weekend at age seventy, the\u00a0<\/em>Atlanta Journal-Constitution<\/em><\/a> reports. Lux, who taught for years at Georgia Tech, aspired to make his poems ring with \u201cthe right combination of metaphor or image connected to the business of being alive.\u201d His earlier, more ironical work recalled the surrealism of Bill Knott, a selection of whose poems<\/a> Lux had just\u00a0readied for publication before his death. He had work in The Paris Review <\/em>in the seventies and eighties. Kevin Young, a friend of Lux\u2019s and a fellow poet whose work has also appeared in the Review<\/em><\/a>, told the Journal-Constitution<\/em>, \u201cTom Lux was not only a great poet, but a great poetry friend and friend to poetry. He was a terrific literary citizen, dedicated to trumpeting the power of poetry and championing the music and many moods of language \u2026 He will be deeply missed.\u201d<\/p>\n

My favorite of Lux\u2019s poems in the Review <\/em>is \u201cThe Thirst of Turtles<\/a>,\u201d which appeared in our Spring 1983 issue and remains, along with Russell Hoban\u2019s novel Turtle Diary<\/em>, one of the great cornerstones of literary herpetology. Here\u2019s Lux in fine form imagining the turtles\u2019 sixty-day underwater migrations:\u00a0<\/p>\n

One hundred,
\none hundred and twenty: how long they live
\nin their thirst, propelling
\nthe great bloody steaks of their bodies,
\ndreaming, anticipating alert
\nsingle-purposed oblivions: sweet
\nsweet turtle-sex\u2014which excites
\nthe lonely watches of sailors\u2014sometimes days
\njoined in wave-riding rapture on the surface
\nof the depths.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Subscribers can read the whole poem here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dan Piepenbring is the web editor of<\/em> The Paris Review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lux, who died on Sunday at seventy, wanted his poems to have \u201cthe right combination of metaphor or image connected to the business of being alive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[13235,221,1862,15406,11989,7221,165,13136,27167,27168],"class_list":["post-107534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-memoriam","tag-bill-knott","tag-georgia","tag-kevin-young","tag-obits","tag-obituaries","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-remembrances","tag-thomas-lux","tag-turtles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThomas Lux, 1946\u20132017<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lux, who died on Sunday at seventy, wanted his poems to have \u201cthe right combination of metaphor or image connected to the business of being alive.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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