It is impossible to imagine what American poetry in the twentieth century might look like without the magnanimity of the late James Laughlin, poet and publisher of New Directions. Among Laughlin's closest friends was poet Hayden Carruth, who served as author, editor, clerk, and typist for New Directions and, at a more personal level, "poetry doctor" for Laughlin himself. Beside the Shadblow Tree is the meditation of one great old poet upon the death of another, upon two lives intertwined in various ways for half a century. And because this book is utterly candid - spontaneous and true to what Carruth calls "the actual mental flow" - it moves us in ways conventional memoirs rarely do.

Hayden Carruth is the author of twenty-five books of poetry, a novel, four books of criticism, and two anthologies, and has held fellowships from the Bollingen, Guggenheim and Lannan foundations, as well as the NEA. His many awards include the National Book Award for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Lenore Marshall/The Nation Award.