Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

or you are the only animal,

who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm very pleased to have as my guest, Barbara Epler, who was the publisher and editor-in-chief

of New Directions.

Now, there are many literary presses in America, large and small.

Oh, just to name a couple.

Dolky Archive.

In Los Angeles, we have two sun and moon, Lefeige, the extraordinary press that has come

out of the New York Review of books, New York Review editions. But all of them inevitably

have to acknowledge the literary press of record New Directions.

What year did New Directions begin its enterprises?

James Lachlan started New Directions in 1936.

And James Lachlan was himself a poet who met Ezra Pound.

Ezra Pound was not discouraging about Lachlan's poetry, but he had said that he would be

of service as an editor.

And so in America, New Directions became the publishers, among many, many others,

of Pound himself, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Tennessee Williams.

Not only that, they were the first major republisher. They brought back into print Miss Lonely

...