Above the City

By James Laughlin 1914–1997 James Laughlin

You know our office on the 18th

floor of the Salmon Tower looks

right out on the

Empire State and it just happened

we were there finishing up some

late invoices on

a new book that Saturday morning

when a bomber roared through the

mist and crashed

flames poured from the windows

into the drifting clouds and sirens

screamed down in

the streets below it was unearthly

but you know the strangest thing

we realized that

none of us were much surprised be-

cause we'd always known that those

two paragons of

progress sooner or later would per-

form before our eyes this demon-

stration of their

true relationship.

James Laughlin,“Above the City,” from Poems New and Selected. Copyright 1938, 1945, © 1959, 1965, 1969, 1970, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996 by James Laughlin. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Source: Poems New and Selected (1998)

Biography

While a sophomore on leave of absence from Harvard University, James Laughlin met Ezra Pound in Rapallo, Italy, and was invited to attend the "Ezuversity"—Pound's term for the private tutoring he gave Laughlin over meals, on hikes, or whenever the master paused in his labors. "I stayed several months in Rapallo at the 'Ezuversity,' learning and reading," recalls Laughlin in an interview with Linda Kuehl for the New York Times . . .

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