God Particles displays the distinctive originality and unpredictability that prompted the Washington Post Book World to name Lux one of this generation’s most gifted poets. A satiric edge, tempered by profound compassion, cuts through many of the poems in Lux’s book. While themes of intolerance, inhumanity, loss, and a deep sense of mortality mark these poems, a lighthearted grace instills even the somberest moments with unexpected sweetness. In the title poem Lux writes, “there’s no reason for God to feel guilt / I think He was downhearted, weary, too weary / to be angry anymore . . . / He wanted each of us, / and all the things we touch . . . / to have a tiny piece of Him / though we are unqualified, / of even the crumb of a crumb.” Dark, humorous, and strikingly imaginative, this is Lux’s most compassionate work to date.
God Particles: Poems
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The prolific Lux (The Street of Clocks) should please but may not surprise his many admirers with this 11th book, accessible and surrealist-influenced. Lux begins on a personal note, with a sentimental elegy for the New England poet and critic Peter Davison, the gentleman who spoke like music. By the end of the book, though, he has depicted little of his external life, few facts and stories about himself, and yet revealed a whole personality through dreamlike scenes, jokes and a persistent grimness. In The Republic of Anesthesia, evolution creates arid hairsplitting amid cruelty, as One frog eats another frog. Lux favors an unobtrusively fluent free verse, whose motions and line breaks focus less on sound than on image and tone. Reminiscent sometimes of a darker Billy Collins, sometimes of an easier-to-follow James Tate, Lux mixes deep gloom with a broad sense of humor, confessing his Autobiographophobia (I will not confide/ my serial poisoning of parakeets), contemplating black thoughts... remedyless and truculent, depicting an ideal library beside a nightmarish zoo or musing on dilemmas few of us will ever face: How Difficult/ for the quadriplegics to watch/ the paraplegics play. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
In these playfully misanthropic, often merrily blasphemous poems, Lux delivers a Swiftian spray of pinpricks to pieties, orthodoxies, and other forms of received wisdom. He engages in mock-epic celebrations of animal cruelty in “Peacocks at Twilight,” in which the speaker threatens to blind the beautiful birds, and in “Toad on Golf Tee,” he takes a nine iron to a “reusable, reteeable toad.” In other poems, Lux flings extravagant curses, proposes elaborate tortures for those who haven’t read Moby-Dick, and returns the glare of would-be robbers. Most memorably, he takes a cattle prod to the ways we think about Christianity. In “5,495” (the number refers to the times Jesus was whipped on his way to Calvary), Lux riffs on the lurid emphasis on Christ’s suffering: “I don’t think / the whip was used that much at Andersonville.” Still, there are unexpected moments of something like awe. Amid all the fun and games of the title poem, the poet imagines a weary God who nonetheless wants us “to have a tiny piece of Him.” --Kevin Nance
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
God Particles by Thomas Lux is his eleventh book of poetry. His verses contain rather striking and unusual images that disturb or amuse at first and then coalesce into feelings more lasting than the initial reaction. Look at some of the titles in this collection: "Hitler's slippers," "Sleep ambulance," "Stink eye," "Gravy boat goes over the waterfall," "Jesus' baby teeth," "Apology to my neighbors for beheading their duck," "The deathwatch beetle," "Sex after funerals," "Toad on golf tee," and the title poem, "God particles."
The words that flow out of these striking titles make us traverse through landscapes that are vivid and well-crafted. The abstract world of poetry is absent from the lines that saunter through (natural) elements that have pleasure for children (and adults): ants, bees, stink eye, "peacocks in twilight", toads and moles. Lux hunts for words and metaphors in realms that most poets would not venture into: "the harmonic scalpel", " the republic of anesthesia", "vinegar on chalk" (all poem titles). His similes are as uncommon as "His thoughts like a deck of cards hit/ by a howitzer. (from "Puzzlehead").
The unmistakable skill of Thomas Lux lies in creating an aftertaste, which is like the coolness felt after water evaporates away. As we discover the tenderness with which he deals with human frailties, we realize that all this satire, wit and imagery is just there to make us stop and listen. As we scrape off the last words of a poem, we sense how subtly Lux commanded compassion, tolerance, morality and honesty to float into our hearts and minds. He propels us into his poems as if we were to watch the gladiators fight to death. After the initial thrill of watching the struggle is gone, we are left with an experience or an heartache, maybe sympathy for the loser, admiration for the skill of a fighter and maybe even disgust at the bloodshed, that seemed entertaining only moments back.
Let me take a step back here, and confess that my admiration for Thomas Lux is influenced by my endless regard for him as a teacher and a mentor. In Indian tradition, we believe that every seeker (of knowledge, truth or beauty) needs a Guru to guide his way. For countless students like me at Georgia Institute of Technology, Sarah Lawrence, Warren Wilson and numerous other places, Thomas Lux has provided exactly that mixture of care, knowledge and guidance. For this very reason, I always refer to him as Gurudev (Gurudev means teacher-God, and we refer to Tagore as Gurudev). In the opening poem of this collection, Gurudev Lux writes (poem is dedicated to Peter Davidson): "The gentleman who spoke like music/ was kind to me/ though he did not have to be./ Who brought into the world a thousand books./ (Right there: a life well lived.)" The poem continues: "Who corrected my spelling, gently and/ my history too, who once/ or twice a year/ would buy me lunch/ and later let me leave his office/ with shopping bag of books to read." Our beloved Gurudev has nurtured poetry in seekers precisely like the gentleman in his poem, and this kindness and compassion form an essential backdrop to his writing. The language is simple, yet profound. The word weaving taught and presented in these poems makes them accessible to everyone, which has ever been the hallmark of the work by Thomas Lux.
When I first read poems by Thomas Lux (New and Selected Poems), I frowned at the mention of library of skulls, lake of snakes, shooting off a bird at close range and about sex in history. I was in fact perplexed by those weird, `unpoetic' references. I wasn't too excited by reading poems that were lucid, tangible and written as free verse. But when I set the book down, I found myself meditating on the thoughts seeded by his poems, and opening pages to re-read them. The aspects of life that remain somewhat unspoken of in the ritualistic diet of abstract, obscure poems served to us these days, were surprisingly alive in his poems. Now I realize that his poems have a rhythm, a music that is felt when they are read aloud. Working class people, small town people, hunters and army soldiers all unfold their daily worries or joys into his poems. While the idioms are very American, they speak of emotions and aspirations of all human beings. I have found at least two dozen poems that translate really well into Hindi and resonate with Indian themes (e. g. "A Little Tooth").
Typically a poem meanders through similes, metaphors, line breaks and syllables like a river that has a source, a terrain claimed by it, and an ocean of understanding expected from the reader. Most poets thrive on either an intellectualism or erudition associated with academic circles, or they thrive on a hobo lifestyle, where they extract potent lines from a mist or a fog of highly unconventional, unworldly life. Poems by either of these schools of thought are perhaps most apt for reading by their followers. Hence even though a common man, at times, is amazed, confused or startled by these verses, these contain emotions, examples and philosophies beyond his realm. The presence of occult, obscure, obscene, Oriental and/ or opiated ramblings does not always amount to original and good art. Great art can be extracted by reinventing or reinterpreting the obvious or the ordinary. To illustrate an idea simply, to present an emotion that resonates with feelings of a the non-literary, 'untrained' majority, to produce a sonnet or a song that is deep in meaning and yet contains everyday thoughts and objects, I believe, requires the greatest scholarship. Even though the poems of Lux revel in absurdity of the modern life, by a clever mix of humor and satire, through understatement and careful attention to craft, they leave the reader with a clear idea and a sense of understanding and joy. For this one reason, he is a poet who will ever be read, and should be read.
The poems of Lux are often full of self-effacing humor. In a poem titled Invective, he says: "I pray your son wish to be a poet." He laughs at himself and at his community by writing: " Vatricide/ i.e. the murder (metaphorical) of poets,/ is not such a bad idea in some cases:/ the case of the poet who put fish poison in her poems/ the case of the poet who put his life,/ every part of it, over/ and over again, in his poems." His satire is telling in "Autobiographophobia", where he conjures an absurd biography for a poet. Judge the poem, and not the poet is somewhat unacceptable to the gossip-mongers that abound in public and in media. The dense poetry and prose that is celebrated by intelligentsia gets satirized in "The General Law of Oblivion", where he says: "Though one cannot deny/ its genius, Mr. Proust's prose/ kills me, it loops me over and out." Poems of Lux have endless lessons from history, served to us as humorous anecdotes on one hand, and as parodies of whimsical present on the other. So in the same collection we found an account of a Greek poet (second only to Homer) as well as a poem about Jesus baby teeth on sale!
At times, his poems seem irreverent: like talking about Jesus baby teeth or "the Buddhists quick-change from bright orange/ to camo robes, pointing their howitzers eastward" or where he says "God's expository writing lacks lucidity/ and he or his scribes often write sloppily" Yet if you put these lines in perspective, read them in the context of the poem or the argument, these very lines display a respect for humanity and the divine, that wants to help us transcend our limited, orthodox or nonsecular thinking. In other words, if there is a flame or two here or there, it is to light or corner. I will leave you with the exemplary first three lines from the title poem, "God Particles":
"God explodes, supernovas, and down upon the whole planet
a tender rain of him falls
on every cow, ladle, leaf, human, ax handle, swing set."
which give way to the following lines at the end:
"...and He wanted each of us,
and all things we touch
and are touched by,
to have a tiny piece of Him,
though we are unqualified
for even the crumb of a crumb."
The words that flow out of these striking titles make us traverse through landscapes that are vivid and well-crafted. The abstract world of poetry is absent from the lines that saunter through (natural) elements that have pleasure for children (and adults): ants, bees, stink eye, "peacocks in twilight", toads and moles. Lux hunts for words and metaphors in realms that most poets would not venture into: "the harmonic scalpel", " the republic of anesthesia", "vinegar on chalk" (all poem titles). His similes are as uncommon as "His thoughts like a deck of cards hit/ by a howitzer. (from "Puzzlehead").
The unmistakable skill of Thomas Lux lies in creating an aftertaste, which is like the coolness felt after water evaporates away. As we discover the tenderness with which he deals with human frailties, we realize that all this satire, wit and imagery is just there to make us stop and listen. As we scrape off the last words of a poem, we sense how subtly Lux commanded compassion, tolerance, morality and honesty to float into our hearts and minds. He propels us into his poems as if we were to watch the gladiators fight to death. After the initial thrill of watching the struggle is gone, we are left with an experience or an heartache, maybe sympathy for the loser, admiration for the skill of a fighter and maybe even disgust at the bloodshed, that seemed entertaining only moments back.
Let me take a step back here, and confess that my admiration for Thomas Lux is influenced by my endless regard for him as a teacher and a mentor. In Indian tradition, we believe that every seeker (of knowledge, truth or beauty) needs a Guru to guide his way. For countless students like me at Georgia Institute of Technology, Sarah Lawrence, Warren Wilson and numerous other places, Thomas Lux has provided exactly that mixture of care, knowledge and guidance. For this very reason, I always refer to him as Gurudev (Gurudev means teacher-God, and we refer to Tagore as Gurudev). In the opening poem of this collection, Gurudev Lux writes (poem is dedicated to Peter Davidson): "The gentleman who spoke like music/ was kind to me/ though he did not have to be./ Who brought into the world a thousand books./ (Right there: a life well lived.)" The poem continues: "Who corrected my spelling, gently and/ my history too, who once/ or twice a year/ would buy me lunch/ and later let me leave his office/ with shopping bag of books to read." Our beloved Gurudev has nurtured poetry in seekers precisely like the gentleman in his poem, and this kindness and compassion form an essential backdrop to his writing. The language is simple, yet profound. The word weaving taught and presented in these poems makes them accessible to everyone, which has ever been the hallmark of the work by Thomas Lux.
When I first read poems by Thomas Lux (New and Selected Poems), I frowned at the mention of library of skulls, lake of snakes, shooting off a bird at close range and about sex in history. I was in fact perplexed by those weird, `unpoetic' references. I wasn't too excited by reading poems that were lucid, tangible and written as free verse. But when I set the book down, I found myself meditating on the thoughts seeded by his poems, and opening pages to re-read them. The aspects of life that remain somewhat unspoken of in the ritualistic diet of abstract, obscure poems served to us these days, were surprisingly alive in his poems. Now I realize that his poems have a rhythm, a music that is felt when they are read aloud. Working class people, small town people, hunters and army soldiers all unfold their daily worries or joys into his poems. While the idioms are very American, they speak of emotions and aspirations of all human beings. I have found at least two dozen poems that translate really well into Hindi and resonate with Indian themes (e. g. "A Little Tooth").
Typically a poem meanders through similes, metaphors, line breaks and syllables like a river that has a source, a terrain claimed by it, and an ocean of understanding expected from the reader. Most poets thrive on either an intellectualism or erudition associated with academic circles, or they thrive on a hobo lifestyle, where they extract potent lines from a mist or a fog of highly unconventional, unworldly life. Poems by either of these schools of thought are perhaps most apt for reading by their followers. Hence even though a common man, at times, is amazed, confused or startled by these verses, these contain emotions, examples and philosophies beyond his realm. The presence of occult, obscure, obscene, Oriental and/ or opiated ramblings does not always amount to original and good art. Great art can be extracted by reinventing or reinterpreting the obvious or the ordinary. To illustrate an idea simply, to present an emotion that resonates with feelings of a the non-literary, 'untrained' majority, to produce a sonnet or a song that is deep in meaning and yet contains everyday thoughts and objects, I believe, requires the greatest scholarship. Even though the poems of Lux revel in absurdity of the modern life, by a clever mix of humor and satire, through understatement and careful attention to craft, they leave the reader with a clear idea and a sense of understanding and joy. For this one reason, he is a poet who will ever be read, and should be read.
The poems of Lux are often full of self-effacing humor. In a poem titled Invective, he says: "I pray your son wish to be a poet." He laughs at himself and at his community by writing: " Vatricide/ i.e. the murder (metaphorical) of poets,/ is not such a bad idea in some cases:/ the case of the poet who put fish poison in her poems/ the case of the poet who put his life,/ every part of it, over/ and over again, in his poems." His satire is telling in "Autobiographophobia", where he conjures an absurd biography for a poet. Judge the poem, and not the poet is somewhat unacceptable to the gossip-mongers that abound in public and in media. The dense poetry and prose that is celebrated by intelligentsia gets satirized in "The General Law of Oblivion", where he says: "Though one cannot deny/ its genius, Mr. Proust's prose/ kills me, it loops me over and out." Poems of Lux have endless lessons from history, served to us as humorous anecdotes on one hand, and as parodies of whimsical present on the other. So in the same collection we found an account of a Greek poet (second only to Homer) as well as a poem about Jesus baby teeth on sale!
At times, his poems seem irreverent: like talking about Jesus baby teeth or "the Buddhists quick-change from bright orange/ to camo robes, pointing their howitzers eastward" or where he says "God's expository writing lacks lucidity/ and he or his scribes often write sloppily" Yet if you put these lines in perspective, read them in the context of the poem or the argument, these very lines display a respect for humanity and the divine, that wants to help us transcend our limited, orthodox or nonsecular thinking. In other words, if there is a flame or two here or there, it is to light or corner. I will leave you with the exemplary first three lines from the title poem, "God Particles":
"God explodes, supernovas, and down upon the whole planet
a tender rain of him falls
on every cow, ladle, leaf, human, ax handle, swing set."
which give way to the following lines at the end:
"...and He wanted each of us,
and all things we touch
and are touched by,
to have a tiny piece of Him,
though we are unqualified
for even the crumb of a crumb."
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Full disclosure: I am a student of Tom Lux and I greatly like the man. That said, I'm pleased to report that this book represents a return to form by one of America's finest and most big-hearted poets. Over the years, Lux has written a majority of his poems in an ostensibly accessible style, one that draws the reader in (seduces actually) with sly humor, surprising asides and a gentle manner. Almost each of these poems suffers a turn near its close that turns the lyric towards serious matters or a philosophic reflection that seems inevitable and somehow surprising at the same time. The manner and degree of invention that appeared so fresh and inventive in "Split Horizon", "The Drowned River" and "Half-Promised Land", turned a little coy and self-knowing in recent years, the desire to entertain overwhelming the need to connect. Always, however, the technical arsenal of his writing remained impressive, the perfect line-endings, the never-wasted words, the emphasis on fresh language, the gift for perfect titles.
In "God Particles" Lux tames his recent style with an infusion of surrealism and surreptitious theology. As a result, the poems have a degree of gravitas, a weight and mystery that his many readers have not previously seen, especially if they missed reading "The Blind Swimmer", a 1996 collection of early poems from 1970 to 1975. The poems in "The Blind Swimmer" are typical of their period, fashionably surrealistic, somewhat opaque and not always applied to important issues. Lux has turned sixty and the poems in "God Particles" marry the style of the early poems to the ultimate issues of human existence, love and mortality, social dissonance and war, the existence of God and the nature of the universe. It's a good match. Here is a brief love poem:
Early Blur
occurs, I say to Mary, when we catch the outline
of something and think we know it
and then we fill in the parts we don't see
with hope. I say this
to Mary, Mary of the late slant light of autumn,
Mary by the lake of the wolverines,
Mary by the lake beneath which drowned a wall,
Mary of the first snow, I say to Mary,
I say: I am the river
and you are its blue, burning current.
Other tender moments include his tribute to Peter Davison, the late editor of the Atlantic Monthly ("The Gentleman Who Spoke Like Music") and "Sugar Spoon", a song for his parents. There are poems about literature that say something about memory and our common end ("The General Law of Oblivion"), poems about human cruelty and the hunger of the sword, and lyrics about theology ("God Particles", "The Joy-Bringer"). There are poems that are humorous, silly and heartbreaking, sometimes all at once ("And The Mice Made Marriage All Night"); the range is extremely wide. It's a wonderful book, the kind we expect from a major poet.
In "God Particles" Lux tames his recent style with an infusion of surrealism and surreptitious theology. As a result, the poems have a degree of gravitas, a weight and mystery that his many readers have not previously seen, especially if they missed reading "The Blind Swimmer", a 1996 collection of early poems from 1970 to 1975. The poems in "The Blind Swimmer" are typical of their period, fashionably surrealistic, somewhat opaque and not always applied to important issues. Lux has turned sixty and the poems in "God Particles" marry the style of the early poems to the ultimate issues of human existence, love and mortality, social dissonance and war, the existence of God and the nature of the universe. It's a good match. Here is a brief love poem:
Early Blur
occurs, I say to Mary, when we catch the outline
of something and think we know it
and then we fill in the parts we don't see
with hope. I say this
to Mary, Mary of the late slant light of autumn,
Mary by the lake of the wolverines,
Mary by the lake beneath which drowned a wall,
Mary of the first snow, I say to Mary,
I say: I am the river
and you are its blue, burning current.
Other tender moments include his tribute to Peter Davison, the late editor of the Atlantic Monthly ("The Gentleman Who Spoke Like Music") and "Sugar Spoon", a song for his parents. There are poems about literature that say something about memory and our common end ("The General Law of Oblivion"), poems about human cruelty and the hunger of the sword, and lyrics about theology ("God Particles", "The Joy-Bringer"). There are poems that are humorous, silly and heartbreaking, sometimes all at once ("And The Mice Made Marriage All Night"); the range is extremely wide. It's a wonderful book, the kind we expect from a major poet.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Anne
Format:Hardcover
I own other books by Thomas Lux and this one is by far my favorite. While the quirky sense of humor his fans love is still here, he also reaches a consistent depth with this compliation that--poem by poem--leaves an impression no reader can ignore. (Kind of like Chinese water torture...you're not sure which drop does the person in since each is so simple yet so strong. I mean the simile in a good way, of course.)
This book was a pleasure to read (even my non-poem-friendly husband enjoyed hearing them read aloud) and I respect Lux for taking on such a risky topic as the size of God--therefore seeing us as the particles we truly are. It's sobering. Not all of the poems in the collection are about religion, but they are each weighty for their own purposes.
Lux sucessfully acheived discussing religon in poetry with this book, walking the tightrope between doubt and blind faith. He had his eyes wide open, and I think many readers will say the same once they have finished it.
This book was a pleasure to read (even my non-poem-friendly husband enjoyed hearing them read aloud) and I respect Lux for taking on such a risky topic as the size of God--therefore seeing us as the particles we truly are. It's sobering. Not all of the poems in the collection are about religion, but they are each weighty for their own purposes.
Lux sucessfully acheived discussing religon in poetry with this book, walking the tightrope between doubt and blind faith. He had his eyes wide open, and I think many readers will say the same once they have finished it.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great inspiration for the poet, or poetry lover.
Trying to find something related to poetry and to Smith College for my granddaughter, came across the work of Thomas Lux. Who was born in NorthHampton, MA, home of Smith. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mary j Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars
What excellent company!
Compassionate, complicated, approachable, funny, wry, unsentimental, amazing. oh yeah and interesting. This guy is interesting, he knows things. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Lynn Hoffman, author:The Short Course in Beer
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lux keeps on keeping on
Thomas lux is indeed genius. He has developed a style that is wholly unique and identifiable. This collection is a little lighter on the oddball-moments-in-history material that... Read more
Published on October 2, 2008 by Mr. Richard K. Weems
