Since 1936, the New Directions anthologies have served as vehicles for the presentation of new and variant literary trends. The twenty-fifth in the series––in a sense, an ’anniversary’’ number––is dedicated to the late Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972), and contains Lawrence Ferlinglietti’s moving “Elegy” in the memory of a man whose intimate association with the New Directions house spanned the course of nearly four decades. Gary Snyder’s trenchant ecological statement, “’Energy Is Eternal Delight,’” leads oil the collection, and is followed by a wide range of contributions drawn from eight different countries. Austria: the poetry of Peter Handke. Brazil: stories by Osman Lins and Glance Lispector. England: poems by Edwin Brock. Estonia: ’’Dry Radiance,’’ the first major appearance, in English, of the poetry of Aleksis Rannit. France: a graphic display of ’’Petites Sculptures" by the concrete poet J.F. Bory. Italy: poems by Andrea Zatizotto. Nicaragua: Ernesto Cardenal’s eloquent ’’Coplas on the Death of Merton.’’ United States: satire by James Purdy; fiction by Walter Abish and Anne de Saint Phalle; Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s ’’Las Vegas Tilt,’’ Carl Rakosi’s ’’Nine Poems from The Everyday Book,’’ and poetry by Sonya Dorman, Barent Gjelsness, E. W. Johnson, Toby Olson; and a long prose-poem, ’’Brokennosejob,’’ by Mia Raffel.