William Carlos Williams and James Laughlin: Selected Letters

by William Carlos Williams, James Laughlin, Hugh Witemeyer (Editor)

This volume chronicles the correspondence between William Carlos Williams, a Pullitzer Prize-winning American poet, and his publisher, James Laughlin, the founder of "New Directions". The letters discuss modernism, art, publishing, and the writer/editor relationship between the two men.

Genres: Poetry

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 17, 1989

About the author

William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine. Williams "worked harder at being a writer than he did at being a physician," wrote biographer Linda Wagner-Martin. During his long lifetime, Williams excelled both as a poet and a physician.

Although his primary occupation was as a doctor, Williams had a full literary career. His work consists of short stories, poems, plays, novels, critical essays, an autobiography, translations, and correspondence. He wrote at night and spent weekends in New York City with friends—writers and artists like the avant-garde painters Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia and the poets Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore. He became involved in the Imagist movement but soon he began to develop opinions that differed from those of his poetic peers, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. Later in his life, Williams toured the United States giving poetry readings and lectures.

In May 1963, he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962) and the Gold Medal for Poetry of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. The Poetry Society of America continues to honor William Carlos Williams by presenting an annual award in his name for the best book of poetry published by a small, non-profit or university press.

Williams' house in Rutherford is now on the National Register of Historic Places. He was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2009.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

One thing sure though, there's a freshness about the young writers that has not yet been corrupted by the dry rot of our pseudo sophistication.

Perhaps it is an admission on my part. I didn't feel old as such. I did spend a Friday evening reading this collection, sipping ale and listening to Schoenberg. It was a perfectly peaceful experience.

Alas these letters didn't rise to the level of my recent fare. Too much commerce and language devoted to royalties and promotion. Matters did improve but then WCW's health dipped and apparently he lost the stamina for this endeavor.

[Duane · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you enjoy WCW's poetry, this is a nice look behind the scenes at the absolute joy the poet experienced from writing--writing anything, letters, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and plays. It's also interesting to see him goading Laughlin to keep his books in print and to promote them more than New Directions seemed to manage at times. And not only WCW's books, but those of other writers. A good way to see a lively mind at work and play.

[Mills College Library]

811.52 W7286w 1989