In celebration of the centenary of James Laughlin’s birth (October 30, 1914), Jonathan Galassi recalls his time at Meadow House in Norfolk, CT with the publisher and founder of New Directions. This essay originally appeared in Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Vol. 23, No. 1/2. Next month, FSG will publish “Literchoor Is My Beat”: A Life of James Laughlin, Publisher of New Directions, by Ian S. MacNiven. My picture of J. Laughlin is indivisible from the place where he lived, a small town in northwestern Connecticut where even today nature remains dominant. Waves of hills cut by headlong brooks, second-growth forest of tall white pine, birch and hardwood cut by old logging roads, glacial boulders in the fields—and strong weather, especially long, cold, snowy winters: reputedly the highest point in the state, Norfolk is known as the Ice Box of Connecticut.

In commemoration of the centenary of John Berryman's birth (October 25, 1914), FSG’s Work in Progress is celebrating this icon of twentieth-century American literature by having authors write about what they admire about him and his work. This is an unpublished letter, dated...

In commemoration of the centenary of John Berryman's birth (October 25, 1914), FSG’s Work in Progress is celebrating this icon of twentieth-century American literature by having authors write about what they admire about him and his work.

In commemoration of the centenary of John Berryman's birth (October 25, 1914), FSG’s Work in Progress is celebrating this icon of twentieth-century American literature by having authors write about what they admire about him and his work.

In commemoration of the centenary of John Berryman's birth (October 25, 1914), FSG’s Work in Progress is celebrating this icon of twentieth-century American literature by having authors write about what they admire about him and his work. The incandescent temperament of Berryman's poetry...

In commemoration of the centenary of John Berryman's birth (October 25, 1914), FSG’s Work in Progress is celebrating this icon of twentieth-century American literature by having authors write about what they admire about him and his work. “Berryman,” by W.S. Merwin, is originally...

In commemoration of the centenary of John Berryman's birth (October 25, 1914), FSG’s Work in Progress is celebrating this icon of twentieth-century American literature by having authors write about what they admire about him and his work. I often think of my favorite...

In commemoration of the centenary of John Berryman's birth (October 25, 1914), FSG’s Work in Progress is celebrating this icon of twentieth-century American literature by having authors write about what they admire about him and his work. “A dream recounted is a reader...

In 1967, the poet John Berryman—already a Pulitzer Prize winner for his 77 Dream Songs—was interviewed by the English critic A. Alvarez. The interview, which ran over the course of three days, was filmed for the BBC at a pub, Ryan’s Beggars Bush, in Ballsbridge, Dublin, and it is from this footage that the clips of Berryman reading his Dream Songs—#14 and #29—which now circulate on YouTube are drawn.