A Commonplace Book of Pentastichs

Poetry. "A Commonplace Book of Pentastichs" is a compilation of 249 poems composed in a fine-line stanza form first introduced in The Secret Room (1997). It is the last book of his own that Laughlin helped to prepare. Musing On the full collection, Hayden Carruth writes in his introduction: "For the reader it is a survey of literature that will never be found in the classroom ... but indubitably will be found in loving longlasting proximity on many a bedside table." James Laughlin founded New Directions in 1936. His own first book Natural Things appeared nine years later, Poems New And Selected, also available from SPD, was later completed shortly before his death in 1997.