Hayden Carruth

This is an intimate portrait of one of the 20th century’s most influential publishers, as only a great poet can see him. It is impossible to imagine what American poetry in the twentieth century might look like without the magnanimity of the late James Laughlin, poet and publisher of New Directions. The list of authors first discovered, nurtured, and championed by Laughlin is breathtaking: Vladimir Nabokov, Ezra Pound, Tennessee Williams, Henry Miller, Dylan Thomas, and William Carlos Williams. The list goes on remarkably. Among Laughlin’s closest friends was poet Hayden Carruth, who served as author, editor, clerk, and typist for New Directions, and as “poetry doctor” for Laughlin himself. This utterly candid memoir chronicles the complex friendship between these two influential literary figures.

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