Copyright © 1997 by the Estate of James Laughlin Copyright © 1938, 1945, 1959, 1965, 1969, 1970, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996 by James Laughlin roduction, Copyright © 1998 by Charles Tomlinson poems "I Cannot Separate Her" and "Lost Brains" originally appeared in The New Yorker, "Nunc Dimittis" in Double Take, "Funerals" and "Illness" in Grand Street, and "An Honest Heart . . . A Knowing Hand" in Agni. epigraph on page vii, "Write on My Tomb", was originally published in James Laughlin Stolen & Contaminated Poems ( 1985). Most of the poems in this volume were selected from the following books by James Laughlin: Some Natural Things ( 1945), A Small Book of Poems ( 1947), The Wild Anemone ( 1957), In Another Country ( 1978), Stolen & Contaminated Poems ( 1985), Selected Poems 1935-1985 ( 1986), The Owl of Minerva ( 1987), The Bird of Endless Time ( 1989), The Man in the Wall ( 1993), The Collected Poems of James Laughlin ( 1994), Heart Island & Other Epigrams ( 1995), The Country Road ( 1995), and The Secret Room ( 1996). For details, see below, p. 291. Manufactured in the United States of America New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper. First published as New Directions Paperbook 857 in 1998 Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Laughlin James, 1914-1997 [Poems. Selections] Poems, new and selected/ James Laughlin; introduction by Charles Tomlinson. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-8112-1375-7 (pbk.: alk. paper) I. Title. PS3523.A8245A6 1998 811'.54-dc21 97-52320 CIP New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin by New Directions Publishing Corporation, 80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011 -iv- |