With its latest issue, New Directions in Prose and Poetry enters its fortieth year of publication. In his preface to the very first number, founding editor James Laughlin asserted the “It is the poet––the word-worker––who must lead… It is the word-worker who must show the way.” Leading off ND30 is “GrandPa, GoodBye,” the late Charles Olson’s evocative reminiscence of Ezra Pound at St. Elizabeths Hospital. “Irritational Verse,” a mini-anthology of new “functional poetry” from Germany, both East and West, has been selected and translated by André Lefevere. Other poets include Alfred Starr Hamilton, José Hierro (Spain), J. Laughlin, Robert Morgan, and Tennessee Williams. Coleman Dowell and Gilbert Sorrentino each offer excerpts from their novels-in-progress. Shorter fiction is contributed by Walter Abish, E. M. Beekman, Marvin Cohen, Mia Garca-Camarillo, Steve Katz, James Purdy, and Harriet Zinnes. And features as well is “The New Deliverance,” a one-act play by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, Poland’s outstanding figure in the avant-garde between the two world wars.