James Laughlin (October 30, 1914 – November 12, 1997) was an American poet and literary book publisher who founded New Directions Publishing. Read full biography of James Laughlin →
I think that concrete poetry seems to have, as far as I can see, come to a kind of a dead end. It doesn't seem to be going any further than it... →
I do read everything that we publish. We usually have to have two or three votes for a book before we take it on. So in that sense I suppose it is an... →
I think that is where poetry reading becomes such an individual thing. I mean I have friend who like poets who just don't say anything to me at... →
I think one ages and one dates. I tend to have a good deal of difficulty in liking some of the new poets.
I try to write in plain brown blocks of American speech but occasionally set in an ancient word or a strange word just to startle the reader a little... →
Of course a poem is a two-way street. No poem is any good if it doesn't suggest to the reader things from his own mind and recollection that he... →
Every now and then, I strike something that just goes click, you know, in my head. As Gertrude Stein used to say, it rings the bell, and I feel, this... →
I think we will always have the impulse towards visual poetry with us, and I wouldn't agree with Bly that it's a bad thing. It depends on the... →
We do very little re-writing in the office. We often take on people who show great promise and who we hope will develop into somebody important and... →
We see them when they come to New York. They stay at my wife's apartment. We have quite a correspondence with them at all times. They play a very... →
I think there's no excuse for the American poetry reader not knowing a good deal about what is going on in the rest of the world.
Concrete poets continue to turn out beautiful things, but to me they're more visual than oral, and they almost really belong on the wall rather... →
I think most people read and re-read the things that they have liked. That's certainly true in my case. I re-read Pound a great deal, I re-read... →
James Laughlin (October 30, 1914 – November 12, 1997) was an American poet and literary book publisher who founded New Directions Publishing.