Publisher, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Drawing on his family's fortune (from the Jones and Laughlin Steel Co), in 1936 he founded New Directions Press, which specializes in publishing quality literary works deemed unlikely to gain a mass audience. Dylan Thomas and Ezra Pound were among its authors.
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 and Laughlin Steel Corporation, founded a generation earlier by his grandfather, and this wealth would partially fund Laughlin's future endeavors in publishing. Pound suggested publishing, and when Laughlin returned to Harvard, he used money from his father to found New Directions Publishing.
Laughlin's son tragically killed himself by stabbing himself multiple times in the bathtub.
Laughlin won the 1992 Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award from the National Book Awards Program.
Style
Laughlin's style is marked by striking simplicity, with Laughlin himself stating "...They mean what they say, and I don't decorate [my poems] in any way.
Works
Laughlin's works include:
In Another Country (1979) Selected Poems (1986) The House of Light (1986) Tabellaie (1986) The Owl of Minerva (1987) Collemata and Pound As Wuz (1988) Collected Poems of James Laughlin (1992)Probably Laughlin's most anthologized work is "Step on His Head", a poem about his relationship with his children.
Step on His Head
"Let's step on daddy's head",
Shout the children, my dear children,
As we walk in the country
On a sunny summer day.
My shadow bobs dark on the road as we walk
And they jump on its head, and my love for them
Fills me all full of soft feelings.
Now I duck with my head, so they'll miss when they jump
And they screech with delight, and I moan
"Oh, you're hurting, you're hurting me! Stop!"
And they jump all the harder,
And love fills the whole road.
But I see it run on throught the years,
And I know how someday they must jump and it won't
Be this shadow, but really my head
As I stepped on my own father's head.
It will hurt, really hurt,
And I wonder if then, if I'll have enough love.
Will I have love enough when it's not just a game?
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