James Laughlin

James Laughlin (1914-1997) in 1963. Photo by Alex Joins. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

James Laughlin
Born	October 30, 1914(1914-Template:MONTHNUMBER-30) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Died	December 12, 1997(1997-Template:MONTHNUMBER-12) (aged 83) Norfolk, Connecticut, United States
Cause of death	stroke
Alma mater	Harvard University
Known for	publisher, poet
Parents	Henry Hughart, Marjory Rea Laughlin

James Laughlin (October 30, 1914 – November 12, 1997) was an American poet and literary book publisher who founded New Directions Publishing.

Life

Laughlin was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Henry Hughart and Marjory Rea Laughlin. Laughlin's family had made its fortune with the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company, founded 3 generations earlier by his great grandfather, James H. Laughlin, and this wealth would partially fund Laughlin's future endeavors in publishing. As Laughlin once wrote, "none of this would have been possible without the industry of my ancestors, the canny Irishmen who immigrated in 1824 from County Down to Pittsburgh, where they built up what became the fourth largest steel company in the country. I bless them with every breath."

Laughlin's boyhood home is now part of the campus of Chatham University.

At The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut, Laughlin showed an early interest in literature. An important influence on Laughlin at the time was the Choate teacher and translator Dudley Fitts, who later provided Laughlin with introductions to prominent writers such as Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound. Harvard University, where Laughlin matriculated in 1933, had a more conservative literary bent, embodied in the poet and professor Robert Hillyer, who directed the creative-writing program. According to Laughlin, Hillyer would leave the room when either Pound or Eliot was mentioned.

In 1934, Laughlin traveled to France, where he met Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas; Laughlin accompanied them two on a motoring tour of southern France and wrote press releases for Stein's upcoming visit to the U.S. He proceeded to Italy to meet and study with Ezra Pound, who famously told him: "You're never going to be any good as a poet. Why don't you take up something useful?" Pound suggested publishing.

Later, Laughlin took a leave of absence from Harvard and stayed with Pound in Rapallo for several months. When Laughlin returned to Harvard, he used money from his father to found New Directions, which he ran from his dorm room and later from a barn on his Aunt Leila Laughlin Carlisle's estate in Norfolk, Connecticut. (The firm opened offices in New York soon after, at 333 Sixth Avenue and later at 80 Eighth Avenue, where it remains today.) With funds from his graduation gift, Laughlin endowed New Directions with more money, ensuring that the company could stay afloat even though it did not turn a profit until 1946.

The earliest publication of the new press, in 1936, was New Directions in Prose & Poetry, an anthology of poetry and writings by authors such as William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Elizabeth Bishop, Henry Miller, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and E.E. Cummings, a roster that heralded the fledgling company's future as a preeminent publisher of modernist literature. The volume also included a poem by "Tasilo Ribischka," a pseudonym for Laughlin himself. New Directions in Prose and Poetry became an annual publication, issuing its final number in 1991.

Within just a few years New Directions had become an important publisher of modernist literature. Initially, it emphasized contemporary American writers with whom Laughlin had personal connections, such as William Carlos Williams and Pound. A born cosmopolitan, though, Laughlin also sought out cutting-edge European and Latin American authors and introduced their work to the American market. An important example of this was Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha, which New Directions initially published in 1951. Laughlin often remarked that the popularity of Siddhartha subsidized the publication of many other money-losing books of greater importance.

Although of draft age, Laughlin avoided service in World War II due to a 4-F classification. Laughlin, like several of his male ancestors and like his son Robert, suffered from depression. Robert committed suicide by stabbing himself multiple times in the bathtub. Laughlin later wrote a poem about this, called Experience of Blood, in which he expresses his shock at the amount of blood in the human body. And despite the horrific mess left as a result, Laughlin reasons that he cannot ask anyone else to clean it up, "because after all, it was my blood too."

A natural athlete and an avid skiier, Laughlin traveled the world skiing and hiking. With money from his graduation gift, he founded the Alta Ski Area in Utah and was part-owner of the resort there for many years. At times Laughlin's skiing got in the way of his business. After publishing William Carlos Williams' novel White Mule in 1937, Laughlin left for an extended ski trip. When reviewers sought additional copies of the novel, Laughlin was not available to give the book the push it could have used, and as a result Williams nursed a grudge against the young publisher for years. Laughlin's outdoor activities helped other literary friendships, though; for many years he and Kenneth Rexroth took an annual camping trip together in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.

In the early 1950s, Laughlin took part in what has come to be known as the Cultural Cold War against the Soviet Union. With funding from the Ford Foundation and with the assistance of poet and editor Hayden Carruth, Laughlin founded a nonprofit called "Intercultural Publications" that sought to publish a quarterly journal of American arts and letters, PERSPECTIVES USA, in Europe. 16 issues of the journal eventually appeared. Although Laughlin wished to continue the journal, the Ford Foundation cut off funding, asserting that PERSPECTIVES had limited impact and that its money would be better spent on the more effective Congress for Cultural Freedom. Following the dissolution of Intercultural Publications, Laughlin became deeply involved in the activities of the Asia Society.

He died in Norfolk, Connecticut, of complications related to a stroke, at age 83.

Writing

One of Laughlin's most anthologized works is "Step on His Head", a poem about his relationship with his children.

Recognition

Laughlin won the 1992 Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award from the National Book Awards Program.

The Academy of American Poets awards an annual James Laughlin Award, for the second published book by an American poet.

Publications

Poetry

• The River. New York: New Directions, 1938.
• Some Natural Things. New York: New Directions, 1945.
• A Small Book of Poems.. New York: New Directions, 1948.
• The Wild Anemone, and other poems. New York: New Directions, 1957.
• Selected Poems. New York: New Directions, 1959.
  • published in England as Confidential Report, and other poems. Gaberbocchus, 1959.
• The Pig. Perishable Press, 1970.
• In Another Country: Poems, 1935-1975. San Francisco, CA: City Lights, 1978.
• The Deconstructed Man. New York: Windhover Press, 1985.
• Stolen and Contaminated Poems. Isla Vista, CA: Turkey Press, 1985.
• The House of Light (woodcuts by Vanessa Jackson). New York: Grenfell Press, 1986.
• Selected Poems, 1935-1985,.San Franciso, CA: City Lights, 1986.
• Tabellae. New York: Grenfell Press, 1986.
• The Owl of Minerva: Poems. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1987.
• The Bird of Endless Time: Poems. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1989.
• Collected Poems of James Laughlin. Mt. Kisco, NY: Moyer Bell, 1992.
• The Man in the Wall: Poems (foreword by Guy Davenport). New York: New Directions, 1993.
• Phantoms (photographs by Virginia Schendler). New York: Aperture, 1995.
• The Country Road: Poems. Cambridge, MA: Zoland Books, 1995.
• The Secret Room: Poems. New York: New Directions, 1997.
• The Lost Fragments. Dublin: Deladus Press, 1997.
• The Love Poems of James Laughlin. New York: New Directions, 1997.

Fiction

• Random Stories (with introduction by Octavio Paz). Mt. Kisco, NY: Moyer Bell, 1990.

Non-fiction

• Skiing East and West (with photographs by Helen Fischer & Emita Herran). New York: Hastings House, 1946.
• Spearhead: Ten years' experimental writing in America. New York: New Directions, 1947.
• Report on a Visit to Germany. Lausanne, France: Henri Held, 1948.
• Gists and Piths: A memoir of Ezra Pound. New York: Windhover Press, 1982.
• The Master of Those Who Know: Ezra Pound. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 1986.
• Pound as Wuz: Essays and lectures on Ezra Pound. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1987.
• Random Essays: Recollections of a publisher. Mt. Kisco, NY: Moyer Bell, 1989.
• Remembering William Carlos Williams. New York: New Directions, 1995.

Edited

• New Directions in Prose and Poetry series (45 volumes). New York: New Directions, 1936—
• Poems from the Greenberg Manuscripts: A selection from the work of Samuel B. Greenberg. New York: New Directions, 1939.
• A Wreath of Christmas Poems, by Virgil, Dante, Chaucer and Others (edited with Albert M. Hayes). New York: New Directions, 1942.
• Perspective of Burma (edited with U. Myat Kyaw). Intercultural Publications, 1958.
• A New Directions Reader (edited with Hayden Carruth). New York: New Directions, 1964.
• The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (edited with Naomi Burton and Patrick Hart). New York: New Directions, 1975.

Letters

• William Carlos Williams and James Laughlin: Selected letters. New York: Norton, 1989.
• Kenneth Rexroth and James Laughlin: Selected letters (edited by Lee Bartlett). New York: Norton, 1991.
• Delmore Schwartz and James Laughlin: Selected letters (edited by Robert Phillips). New York: Norton, 1993.
• Ezra Pound and James Laughlin: Selected letters (edited by David M. Gordon). New York: Norton, 1994.
• Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected letters (edited by George Wickes). New York: Norton, 1996.
• Thomas Merton and James Laughlin: Selected letters. New York: Norton, 1997.

James Laughlin reading "Experience of Blood"

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation..

See also

• List of American book publishers
• List of U.S. poets

External links

Poems

• "Dawn"
• "Step on His Head"
• James Laughlin 1914-1997 at the Poetry Foundation

Audio / video

• Laughlin reads some of his works
• James Laughlin at PoetryPoetry.com.
• James Laughlin at YouTube

About

• James Laughlin at NNDB
• In Memoriam - James Laughlin
• James Laughlin (1914-1997) by Elliot Weinberger, at Jacket
• Richard Ziegfield (Fall 1983). "James Laughlin, The Art of Publishing No. 1, Part 1". The Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3039/the-art-of-publishing-no-1-part-1-james-laughlin. 
• Richard Ziegfield (Fall 1983). "James Laughlin, The Art of Publishing No. 1, Part 2". The Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3015/the-art-of-publishing-no-1-part-2-james-laughlin. 
• "James Laughlin, New Directions Press, and the Remaking of Ezra Pound

Etc.

• James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets