New Directions 38

Since its inception in 1936, the New Directions in Prose and Poetry anthology series has been at the very core of the ND list. Of special interest in this the thirty-eighth number is a variety of visual and graphic materials that strives to extend the concept of the written word. David Antins real estate, a lengthy and highly entertaining narrative, is reproduced from the authors own transcription of his improvised talk poem. Poet and critic Dick Higgins contributes two concrete poems. And from the late Russian man of letters, Aleksei Remizov (1877-1957) come eight remarkable drawings, introduced by the exiled Estonian poet and critic Aleksis Rannit. Also included are: Lawrence Ferlinghettis Second Populist Manifesto: Adieu a CharIot; James Purdys bizarre Anonymous/Anomalous Letters of Passion; The Face at the Bottom of the World, a poem sequence by Betsy Adams; Klaus von Stauffenberg Reads His Palm While Shooting Niagara, from Paul Wests fictionalized account of one of Hitlers leading generals; Peter Kurinskys The Investigation, a tale of a young mans unearthing of family skeletons; a newly translated story, Blues for a Black Cat, by the late French author Boris Vian (1920-59); The Flies, an evocation of a writers idyl gone awry, by the Faroese author William Heinesen; Six Prose Poems by the young Mexican-American poet Jimmy Santiago Baca; Buried Alive, a cryptic narrative of political repression by the Spanish writer Ramn Hernndez.