The Owl of Minerva

James Laughlin

These poems, including those in Laughlin’s inimitable “American French,” include reveries and meditations, political and social observations, satires and his unique brand of interlingual echoing; they are light without being trivial, serious without growing weighty.

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ISBN: 9781556590054

Format: Hardcover

O Best of All Nights, Return and Return Again

After the Pervigilium Veneris & Propertius’s “Nox mihi candia“

How she let her long hair down over her shoulders, making a love
cave around her face. Return and return again.
How when the lamplight was lowered she pressed against him,
twining her fingers in his. Return and return again.
How their legs swam together like dolphins and their toes played
like little tunnies. Return and return again.
How she sat beside him cross-legged, telling him stories of her
childhood. Return and return again.
How she closed her eyes when his were open, how they breathed
together, breathing each other. Return and return again.
How they fell into slumber, their bodies curled together like
two spoons. Return and return again.
How they went together to Otherwhere, the fairest land they had
ever seen. Return and return again.
O best of all nights, return and return again.

About the Author

James Laughlin was born in Pittsburgh in 1914. As a twenty-two year old sophomore at Harvard University he founded New Directions, which published some of the twentieth century’s greatest writers: Ezra Pound, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Henry Miller, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, and many others. As a champion of literature in translation, New Directions also published Boris Pasternak, Vladimir Nabokov, Pablo Neruda, and Octavio Paz, among others. Laughlin was awarded honorary degrees from Colgate University, Hamilton College, Duquesne University, Cornell …

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Reviews

“Whatever the forum, Laughlin’s serene, buoyant classicism… allows him to speak most perspicaciously but ever with a smile. Since love is so often the subject here, that is a Midas-like combination: these are golden pages.” —Booklist

“At an age advanced enough to be called ‘venerable,’ Laughlin is one of our youngest poets. What makes him young is his freshness, candor, insouciance and daring… He is a love poet in the tradition of Sappho, Catullus and Cavafy, but without their shadows.” —NPR’s Performance Today

“Laughlin’s poems are the real thing and they reach out with a wild elegance finely fashioned and sure to delight a wide range of readers.” —Small Press