{{short description|American poet (1946–2017)}} {{more footnotes needed|date=October 2012}} {{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see :Template:Infobox writer/doc --> | name = Thomas Lux | image = Thomas Lux, 2008.jpg | imagesize = 150px| | birth_name = Thomas Norman Lux | birth_date = {{birth date|1946|12|10}} | birth_place = Northampton, Massachusetts | death_date = {{death date and age|2017|2|5|1946|12|10}} | death_place = Atlanta, Georgia | occupation = Poet, Professor | language = | nationality = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = | period = | genre = <!-- or: | genres = --> | subject = <!-- or: | subjects = --> | movement = | notableworks = <!-- or: | notablework = --> | spouse = <!-- or: | spouses = --> | partner = <!-- or: | partners = --> | children = | relatives = | awards = Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award | signature = | signature_alt = | years_active = | module = | website = <!-- {{URL|example.org}} --> | portaldisp = <!-- "on", "yes", "true", etc; or omit --> }}
'''Thomas Lux''' (December 10, 1946 – February 5, 2017) was an American poet who held the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and ran Georgia Tech's "Poetry @ Tech" program.<ref name="tech">{{Cite web |url=https://poetry.gatech.edu/bourne-chair |title=The Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry: Thomas Lux |website=Poetry at Tech |publisher=Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts |access-date=2012-10-21}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/thomas-lux|title=Thomas Lux|date=2018-03-22|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en-us|others=Poetry Foundation|access-date=2018-03-22}}</ref> He wrote fourteen books of poetry.<ref name="gatech.edu">{{cite web|url=https://poetry.gatech.edu/poets/thomas-lux|title=Thomas Lux – Poetry @ Tech|publisher=|accessdate=7 February 2017}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Thomas 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.<ref name="ajc">{{Cite web |url=http://www.ajc.com/news/local-obituaries/thomas-lux-esteemed-georgia-tech-teacher-and-poet/wewY41fQeneWb0Ey8CxoIM/ |title=Noted Georgia Poet Thomas Lux dies |last=Emerson |first=Bo |date=February 6, 2017 |publisher=Atlanta Journal-Constitution}}</ref>
Lux graduated from Emerson College in Boston, where he was also poet in residence from 1970 to 1975. His first book—''Memory's Handgrenade''—was published shortly after.<ref name="ajc"/>
==Academic career== Lux was a member of the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, where he taught for twenty-seven years, from 1975 until 2001.<ref name="gatech.edu"/> He was 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.<ref name="gatech.edu"/> A former Guggenheim Fellow and three times a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Lux received, in 1995, the $50,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his sixth collection, ''Split Horizons.''<ref name="auto">{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/books/thomas-lux-died-poet.html|title=Thomas Lux, Poet Who Wrote of Life's Absurdities, Dies at 70|first=William|last=Grimes|date=22 February 2017|publisher=|via=NYTimes.com}}</ref> In 2003, Lux was awarded an honorary doctorate of Letters from Emerson College.<ref name="gatech.edu"/> His poems were featured in many notable anthologies, including ''American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets'' (2006). In 2012, Lux received the Robert Creeley Award.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://robertcreeleyfoundation.org/robert-creeley-award/|title=Robert Creeley Foundation » Award – Robert Creeley Award|website=robertcreeleyfoundation.org|language=en-US|access-date=2018-03-22}}</ref>
At the time of his death in February 2017, Lux was the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology where he began teaching in 2001.<ref name="ajc"/> At Georgia Tech he ran their "Poetry at Tech" program,<ref name="tech"/> which included one of the best known poetry reading series in the country, along with community outreach classes and workshops.<ref>Lux describes the genesis and development of the program in "The Poem Is a Bridge: Poetry@Tech," in: ''Humanistic Perspectives in a Technological World'', ed. Richard Utz, Valerie B. Johnson, and Travis Denton (Atlanta: School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014), pp. 72–75.</ref>
Before his death, Lux edited (and wrote the Introduction to) Bill Knott's posthumous publication ''I Am Flying into Myself: Selected Poems 1960–2014'' which appeared in February 2017.<ref name="gatech.edu"/><ref name="auto"/>
==Death== Lux died of lung cancer at his home in Atlanta, Georgia on February 5, 2017, survived by his wife Jennifer Holley Lux and a daughter from a previous marriage, Claudia Lux.<ref name="auto"/>
==Bibliography== {{Incomplete list|date=February 2020}}{{bots|deny=Citation bot}}
===Poetry=== ;Collections * {{cite book <!--|author=Lux, Thomas--> |title=Memory's handgrenade |location=Cambridge, Mass. |publisher=Pym-Randall |year=1972}} * {{cite book <!--|author=Lux, Thomas |author-mask=1--> |title=The glassblower's breath |location=Cleveland, Ohio |publisher=Cleveland State University Poetry Center |year=1976}} * ''Sunday'' (1979) * ''Half Promised Land'' (1986) * ''The Drowned River'' (1990) * ''Split Horizon'' (1994) * ''The Blind Swimmer: Selected Early Poems, 1970–1975'' (1996) * ''New and Selected Poems, 1975–1995'' (1997) * ''The Street of Clocks'' (2001) * ''The Cradle Place'' (2004) * ''God Particles'' (2008) * ''Child Made of Sand'' (2012) * ''Selected Poems'' (Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2014) {{ISBN|978-1-78037-115-3}} * ''To the Left of Time,'' Ecco, 2016 ;Chapbooks * ''The Land Sighted'' (chapbook, 1970) * ''Madrigal on the Way Home'' (chapbook, 1976) * ''Like a Wide Anvil from the Moon the Light'' (chapbook, 1980) * ''Massachusetts'' (chapbook, 1981) * ''Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy'' (chapbook, 1983) * ''A Boat in the Forest'' (chapbook, 1992) * ''Pecked to Death by Swans'' (chapbook, 1993) ;List of poems {|class='wikitable sortable' width='90%' |- !width=25%|Title !|Year !|First published !|Reprinted/collected |- |Cow chases boys |2015 |{{cite journal |author=Lux, Thomas |date=March 23, 2015 |title=Cow chases boys |journal=The New Yorker |volume=91 |issue=5 |pages=46 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/cow-chases-boys <!--accessdate=2020-02-21-->}} | |- |Refrigerator, 1957 |2021 |{{cite journal |author=Lux, Thomas |date=September 6, 2021 |title=Refrigerator, 1957 |journal=The New Yorker |volume=97 |issue=27 |pages=54–55 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/06/magazine19970728refrigerator-1957 <!--|access-date=2022-09-25-->}} | |}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{Wikiquote}} * [http://www.cerisepress.com/01/01/love-it-hard-thomas-lux-on-poetry ''Love It Hard'': Thomas Lux On Poetry, profile and interview with Sally Molini in ''Cerise Press,'' Summer 2009] * [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/115 Academy of American Poets profile] * [http://plagiarist.com/poetry/poets/35/ A few poems by Thomas Lux] * [http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/8/lux8i.htm Online interview with Lux] * [http://www.poetry.gatech.edu/index.php Poetry at Tech] * {{YouTube|kj5fChchEYg|Thomas Lux (1946–2017): Bloodaxe Books filmed reading and interview from 2014}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lux, Thomas}} Category:1946 births Category:2017 deaths Category:20th-century American poets Category:21st-century American poets Category:Emerson College alumni Category:Georgia Tech faculty Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty Category:The New Yorker people Category:Sarah Lawrence College faculty Category:Writers from Northampton, Massachusetts Category:Poets from Massachusetts Category:20th-century American male writers Category:21st-century American male writers Category:American male poets