Editor’s Note
Compiling a major volume such as this one is, of necessity, a highly subjective
process. In considering the many poets writing in French in the twentieth cen-
tury and just after, I have given less attention to the number of poems and pages
per poet than to the more important goal of including as many poets from as
many countries as a single volume permits. My aim has been to create a truly
international anthology, one that represents the diversity and changing nature of
French poetics during the century just past, giving su≈cient space to the voices
of the living, while not letting them overwhelm those of the past. Every e√ort has
been made to include poems that seem to have been most crucial to their own
time as well as those from the present that demand to be read.
The brief biographies of the poets that precede their works convey only the
most basic information. Critical analyses of their works are not possible in such
limited space. These small biographical notes do not include the many major
prizes awarded to these poets, nor do they reference English translations of their
works. The volumes of poetry cited as principal works are in some cases supple-
mented by significant prose works, and occasionally by smaller works whose
titles seem particularly indicative of an individual way of seeing or thinking.
Not wishing to privilege any country in an international anthology, I have
opted to include both the city and country as the poet’s birthplace, despite the
apparent redundancy of, say, Paris, France, or Montreal, Canada.
Previously published translations have been faithfully reprinted here as they
first appeared (except for corrections of what seemed obvious misprints or
spelling errors). The many translations commissioned for this volume do reflect,
of course, the voice of each translator. As in all bilingual editions, the translation
is meant to draw attention to the original on the facing page.