David Wayne Canafax was born on August 15, 1949. When he was adopted by his stepfather as a young boy, his legal surname was changed to Lawrence, though in his creative life he continued to identify himself as Canafax. His work is therefore published under the name he chose for himself.

 

He wrote poetry throughout his life, though he never sought to publish it during his lifetime. He was a Texan, and he was a son of the South. He was a sailor who longed for the sounds and smells of salt water, an adventurer and a storyteller. He was a historian of ancient empires and forgotten cultures. He studied architecture and carried its forms and structures in his imagination, weaving those shapes into the scenes he created. 
These strands—places, memories, histories, and the worlds he loved—formed the inner landscapes from which his poems emerged.
David’s poems were shared with very few people, and they reveal the places he built over the years and to where he often returned.
His poems stand as his record, offering glimpses of the worlds he shaped and the world that shaped him.

 

David died in February 2021 and was laid to rest in the family plot at the Hemphill Cemetery in Hemphill, Texas, close to the people and places that surface throughout his poems. His grave lies only a short distance from the old Free Methodist church where his grandfather preached and where David sometimes would ring the bell on Sunday mornings. His resting place is marked by a modest footstone bearing the single word by which he chose to define himself... poet.