This bilingual volume showcases the most innovative poetry of modern France. Here are readable and accurate translations of the moderns of 1848, the symbolist poets of the end of the 19th century, the dadaists, and the surrealists who flourished in the 1930s.From Rimbaud and Baudelaire to Desnos and Breton, Louis Simpsoh’s translations are models of what translation should be – always keeping the original in sight, remaining true to the author’s meaning, form, and style. But, Simpson notes, poems are written with imagination and translations have to be, too.

Modern Poets of France also includes biographies of the poets and descriptions of main literary movements.