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The Deepest Map: The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World's Oceans
By Laura Trethewey. 2023
A Globe and Mail Top 100 SelectionFive oceans cover approximately seventy per cent of the earth, yet we know little…
of what lies beneath them. Now, the race is on to completely map the oceans’ floor. Scientists, investors, militaries, and private explorers are competing in this epic venture to obtain an accurate reading of this vast terrain and understand its contours and environment. In The Deepest Map, Laura Trethewey chronicles this race to the bottom. Following global efforts around the world, she documents Inuit-led crowdsourced mapping in the Arctic as climate change alters the landscape, a Texas millionaire’s efforts to become the first man to dive to the deepest point in each ocean, and the increasingly fraught question of whether and how to mine the deep sea. A true tale of science, nature, technology, and extreme outdoor adventure, The Deepest Map both illuminates why we love — and fear — the earth’s final frontier and contributes to increasingly urgent conversations about climate change.The Probability of Everything
By Sarah Everett. 2023
“One of the best books I have read this year (maybe ever).” —Colby Sharp, Nerdy Book ClubNPR Books We Love…
2023 | Publishers Weekly Best of 2023 | Winner of the Governor General's Literary Awards for Young People's LiteratureA heart-wrenching middle grade debut about Kemi, an aspiring scientist who loves statistics and facts, as she navigates grief and loss at a moment when life as she knows it changes forever.Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It's how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows her odds of being born were 1 in 5.5 trillion and that the odds of her having the best family ever were even lower. Yet somehow, Kemi lucked out.But everything Kemi thought she knew changes when she sees an asteroid hover in the sky, casting a purple haze over her world. Amplus-68 has an 84.7% chance of colliding with earth in four days, and with that collision, Kemi’s life as she knows it will end.But over the course of the four days, even facts don’t feel true to Kemi anymore. The new town she moved to that was supposed to be “better for her family” isn’t very welcoming. And Amplus-68 is taking over her life, but others are still going to school and eating at their favorite diner like nothing has changed. Is Kemi the only one who feels like the world is ending?With the days numbered, Kemi decides to put together a time capsule that will capture her family’s truth: how creative her mother is, how inquisitive her little sister can be, and how much Kemi's whole world revolves around her father. But no time capsule can change the truth behind all of it, that Kemi must face the most inevitable and hardest part of life: saying goodbye."My heart hurt as I raced through the last chapters of this unique book that shines a light on family, friends, grief, and love." —Lisa Yee, author of Maizy Chen's Last ChanceJapan: The Natural History of an Asian Archipelago (Wildlife Explorer Guides #18)
By Mark Brazil. 2022
A comprehensive, richly illustrated guide to Japan’s astonishing animals and plants—and the natural forces that have shaped themThis richly illustrated…
guide is the first comprehensive and accessible introduction to the extraordinary natural history of the Japanese archipelago. It explains how Japan’s geology, geography, climate, seas and currents have forged conditions supporting a diverse range of species—from cranes, bears, eagles and monkeys to plants, butterflies, dragonflies, frogs and snakes—many of which are found nowhere else in the world. Engaging and authoritative, this book is a must-have for anyone who wants to explore or learn about Japan’s natural wonders, from the Japanese Macaque—the famous snow monkeys—to the magnificent Steller’s Eagle.Features more than 878 colour photographs, illustrations and mapsProvides a lavishly illustrated introduction to many of Japan’s common and iconic mammals and birdsTakes readers on a naturalist’s journey to the key areas of Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku and Nansei Shoto, as well as the Izu, Ogasawara and Iwo islandsIntroduces Japan’s geology, geography, topography, climate, habitats, biodiversity and much moreExplains where and how to watch and photograph wildlife in Japan, including whalesAngina Days: Selected Poems (Facing Pages)
By Günter Eich. 2010
A bilingual edition of one of the most important German poets of the twentieth centuryThis is the most comprehensive English…
translation of the work of Günter Eich, one of the greatest postwar German poets. The author of the POW poem "Inventory," among one of the most famous lyrics in the German language, Eich was rivaled only by Paul Celan as the leading poet in the generation after Gottfried Benn and Bertolt Brecht. Expertly translated and introduced by Michael Hofmann, this collection gathers eighty poems, many drawn from Eich's later work and most of them translated here for the first time. The volume also includes the original German texts on facing pages.As an early member of "Gruppe 47" (from which Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll later shot to prominence), Eich (1907-72) was at the vanguard of an effort to restore German as a language for poetry after the vitriol, propaganda, and lies of the Third Reich. Short and clear, these are timeless poems in which the ominousness of fairy tales meets the delicacy and suggestiveness of Far Eastern poetry. In his late poems, he writes frequently, movingly, and often wryly of infirmity and illness. "To my mind," Hofmann writes, "there's something in Eich of Paul Klee's pictures: both are homemade, modest in scale, immediately delightful, inventive, cogent."Unjustly neglected in English, Eich finds his ideal translator here.Ana Enriqueta Terán is arguably Venezuela's finest poet. Celebrated throughout the Spanish-speaking world, she is almost unknown among anglophones. Until…
now only a handful of her poems have been translated into English, giving at best a diluted impression of a uniquely intense imagination. This bilingual edition reveals the power and beauty of this poet's Spanish poems through English versions of corresponding force. It invites readers to enter Terán's world--a world at once strongly Venezuelan and universally human, imbued with great beauty, sardonic humor, pitiless compassion, lucid wisdom, and joyful affirmation. Selected from several volumes of Terán's work, these poems span half a century of composition and show an extraordinary range in both form and substance. Some are written in closed forms, some in free verse. Some are carefully evocative representations of the landscapes and cityscapes that have nourished the poet's intelligence and imagination. Others are dramatic character studies. All are infused with Terán's rare sensibility and realized through language that manages to be at once graceful, urgent, and explosive. This volume is a treasure for all lovers of poetry. Deal Struck with Happiness ? How much sweetness to make right the night and this clutch of anemones near thin smooth consoling stones, stones havens of southern weather. Of a woman who watches Cepheids quaver among lightbursting mangroves. Of a woman who offers cats-eyes and clematis only, Islands, for the sake of setting right her deal struck with happiness.After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets (Facing Pages)
By Eavan Boland. 2004
They are nine women with much in common—all German speaking, all poets, all personal witnesses to the horror and devastation…
that was World War II. Yet, in this deeply moving collection, each provides a singularly personal glimpse into the effects of war on language, place, poetry, and womanhood.After Every War is a book of translations of women poets living in Europe in the decades before and after World War II: Rose Ausländer, Elisabeth Langgässer, Nelly Sachs, Gertrud Kolmar, Else Lasker-Schüler, Ingeborg Bachmann, Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Dagmar Nick, and Hilde Domin. Several of the writers are Jewish and, therefore, also witnesses and participants in one of the darkest occasions of human cruelty, the Holocaust. Their poems, as well as those of the other writers, provide a unique biography of the time—but with a difference. These poets see public events through the lens of deep private losses. They chart the small occasions, the bittersweet family ties, the fruit dish on a table, the lost soul arriving at a railway station; in other words, the sheer ordinariness through which cataclysm is experienced, and by which life is cruelly shattered. They reclaim these moments and draw the reader into them.The poems are translated and introduced, with biographical notes on the authors, by renowned Irish poet Eavan Boland. Her interest in the topic is not abstract. As an Irish woman, she has observed the heartbreaking effects of violence on her own country. Her experience has drawn her closer to these nine poets, enabling her to render into English the beautiful, ruminative quality of their work and to present their poems for what they are: documentaries of resilience—of language, of music, and of the human spirit—in the hardest of times.Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts (Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets #16)
By Jorie Graham. 1980
"How I would like to catch the world / at pure idea," writes Jorie Graham, for whom a bird may…
be an alphabet, and flight an arc. Whatever the occasion--and her work offers a rich profusion of them--the poems reach to where possession is not within us, where new names are needed and meaning enlarged. Hence, what she sees reminds her of what is missing, and what she knows suggests what she cannot. From any event, she arcs bravely into the farthest reaches of mind. Fast readers will have trouble, but so what. To the good reader afraid of complexity, I would offer the clear trust that must bond us to such signal poems as (simply to cite three appearing in a row) "Mother's Sewing Box," "For My Father Looking for My Uncle," and "The Chicory Comes Out Late August in Umbria." Finally, the poet's words again: ". . . you get / just what you want" and (just before that), "Just as / from time to time / we need to seize again / the whole language / in search of / better desires."--Marvin BellAt Lake Scugog: Poems (Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets #58)
By Troy Jollimore. 2011
This is an eagerly awaited collection of new poems from the author of Tom Thomson in Purgatory, which won the…
National Book Critics Circle Award and was hailed by the New York Times as a "snappy, entertaining book." A triumphant follow-up to that acclaimed debut, At Lake Scugog demonstrates why the San Francisco Chronicle has called Troy Jollimore "a new and exciting voice in American poetry." Jollimore is a professional philosopher, and in witty and profound ways his formally playful poems dramatize philosophical subjects--especially the individual's relation to the larger world, and the permeable, constantly shifting border between "inner" and "outer." For instance, the speaker of "The Solipsist," suspecting that the entire world "lives inside of your skull," wonders "why / God would make ear and eye / to face outward, not in." And Tom Thomson--a character who also appeared in Jollimore’s first book--finds himself journeying like an astronaut through the far reaches of the space that fills his head, an experience that prompts him to ask that a doorbell be installed "on the inside," so that he can warn the world before "intruding on’t."______ From At Lake Scugog:LOBSTERS Troy Jollimore ? tend to cluster in prime numbers, sub-oceanic bundles of bug consciousnesssubmerged in waking slumber, plunged in pitsof murk-black water. They have coalesced out of the pitch and grime and salt suspendedwithin that atmospheric gloom. Their skinis colorless below. But when exposedto air, they start to radiate bright green, then, soon, a siren red that wails: I’m dead.The meat inside, though, is as white as teeth,or the hard-boiled egg that comes to mindwhen one cracks that crisp shell and digs beneath. Caress the toothy claw-edge of its pincerand you will know the single, simple thoughtthat populates its mind. The lobster trap is eleganceitself: one moving part: the thing that’s caught.New Impressions of Africa (Facing Pages)
By Raymond Roussel. 2011
A new translation of a masterpiece of modernist poetryPoet, novelist, playwright, and chess enthusiast, Raymond Roussel (1877-1933) was one of…
the French belle époque's most compelling literary figures. During his lifetime, Roussel's work was vociferously championed by the surrealists, but never achieved the widespread acclaim for which he yearned. New Impressions of Africa is undoubtedly Roussel's most extraordinary work. Since its publication in 1932, this weird and wonderful poem has slowly gained cult status, and its admirers have included Salvador Dalì—who dubbed it the most "ungraspably poetic" work of the era—André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Michel Foucault, Kenneth Koch, and John Ashbery.Roussel began writing New Impressions of Africa in 1915 while serving in the French Army during the First World War and it took him seventeen years to complete. "It is hard to believe the immense amount of time composition of this kind of verse requires," he later commented. Mysterious, unnerving, hilarious, haunting, both rigorously logical and dizzyingly sublime, it is truly one of the hidden masterpieces of twentieth-century modernism.This bilingual edition of New Impressions of Africa presents the original French text and the English poet Mark Ford's lucid, idiomatic translation on facing pages. It also includes an introduction outlining the poem's peculiar structure and evolution, notes explaining its literary and historical references, and the fifty-nine illustrations anonymously commissioned by Roussel, via a detective agency, from Henri-A. Zo.The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: Fourth Edition
By Roland Greene. 2012
The most important poetry reference for more than four decades—now fully updated for the twenty-first century Through three editions over…
more than four decades, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics has built an unrivaled reputation as the most comprehensive and authoritative reference for students, scholars, and poets on all aspects of its subject: history, movements, genres, prosody, rhetorical devices, critical terms, and more. Now this landmark work has been thoroughly revised and updated for the twenty-first century. Compiled by an entirely new team of editors, the fourth edition—the first new edition in almost twenty years—reflects recent changes in literary and cultural studies, providing up-to-date coverage and giving greater attention to the international aspects of poetry, all while preserving the best of the previous volumes.At well over a million words and more than 1,000 entries, the Encyclopedia has unparalleled breadth and depth. Entries range in length from brief paragraphs to major essays of 15,000 words, offering a more thorough treatment—including expert synthesis and indispensable bibliographies—than conventional handbooks or dictionaries.This is a book that no reader or writer of poetry will want to be without.Thoroughly revised and updated by a new editorial team for twenty-first-century students, scholars, and poetsMore than 250 new entries cover recent terms, movements, and related topicsBroader international coverage includes articles on the poetries of more than 110 nations, regions, and languagesExpanded coverage of poetries of the non-Western and developing worldsUpdated bibliographies and cross-referencesNew, easier-to-use page designFully indexed for the first timeA Reader's Guide to Wallace Stevens
By Eleanor Cook. 2007
Wallace Stevens is one of the major poets of the twentieth century, and also among the most challenging. His poems…
can be dazzling in their verbal brilliance. They are often shot through with lavish imagery and wit, informed by a lawyer's logic, and disarmingly unexpected: a singing jackrabbit, the seductive Nanzia Nunzio. They also spoke--and still speak--to contemporary concerns. Though his work is popular and his readership continues to grow, many readers encountering it are baffled by such rich and strange poetry. Eleanor Cook, a leading critic of poetry and expert on Stevens, gives us here the essential reader's guide to this important American poet. Cook goes through each of Stevens's poems in his six major collections as well as his later lyrics, in chronological order. For each poem she provides an introductory head note and a series of annotations on difficult phrases and references, illuminating for us just why and how Stevens was a master at his art. Her annotations, which include both previously unpublished scholarship and interpretive remarks, will benefit beginners and specialists alike. Cook also provides a brief biography of Stevens, and offers a detailed appendix on how to read modern poetry. A Reader's Guide to Wallace Stevens is an indispensable resource and the perfect companion to The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, first published in 1954 in honor of Stevens's seventy-fifth birthday, as well as to the 1997 collection Wallace Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose.Oranges and Snow: Selected Poems of Milan Djordjević (Facing Pages #3)
By Milan Djordjević. 2011
Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Charles Simic introduces and translates one of Serbia’s most important contemporary poetsPulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic has…
done more than anyone since Czeslaw Milosz to introduce English-language readers to the greatest modern Slavic poets. In Oranges and Snow, Simic continues this work with his translations of one of today's finest Serbian poets, Milan Djordjević. An encounter between two poets and two languages, this bilingual edition—the first selection of Djordjevic's work to appear in English—features Simic's translations and the Serbian originals on facing pages. Simic, a native Serbian speaker, has selected some forty-five of Djordjević's best poems and provides an introduction in which he discusses the poet's work, as well as the challenges of translation.Djordjević, who was born in Belgrade in 1954, is a poet who gives equal weight to imagination and reality. This book ranges across his entire career to date. His earliest poems can deal with something as commonplace as a bulb of garlic, a potato, or an overcoat fallen on the floor. Later poems, often dreamlike and surreal, recount his travels in Germany, France, and England. His recent poems are more autobiographical and realistic and reflect a personal tragedy. Confined to his house after being hit and nearly killed by a car while crossing a Belgrade street in 2007, the poet writes of his humble surroundings, the cats that come to his door, the birds he sees through his window, and the copies of one of his own books that he once burnt to keep warm.Whatever their subject, Djordjević's poems are beautiful, original, and always lyrical.Carnations: Poems (Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets #59)
By Anthony Carelli. 2011
In Anthony Carelli's remarkable debut, Carnations, the poems attempt to reanimate dead metaphors as blossoms: wild and lovely but also…
fleeting, mortal, and averse to the touch. Here, the poems are carnations, not only flowers, but also body-making words. Nodding to influences as varied as George Herbert, Francis Ponge, Fernando Pessoa, and D. H. Lawrence, Carelli asserts that the poet’s materials—words, objects, phenomena—are sacred, wilting in the moment, yet perennially renewed. Often taking titles from a biblical vocabulary, Carnations reminds us that unremarkable places and events—a game of Frisbee in a winter park, workers stacking panes in a glass factory, or the daily opening of a café—can, in a blink, be new. A short walk home is briefly transformed into a cathedral, and the work-worn body becomes a dancer, a prophet, a muse.______From Carnations:THE PROPHETSAnthony CarelliA river. And if not the river nearby, then a dreamof a river. Nothing happens that doesn’t happenalong a river, however humble the water may be.Take Rowan Creek, the trickle struggling to lugits mirroring across Poynette, wherein, suspended,so gentle and shallow, I learned to walk, bobbingat my father’s knees. Later, whenever we triedto meander on our inner tubes, we’d get lodgedon the bottom. Seth, remember, no matter how we’dkick and shove off, we’d just get lodged again?At most an afternoon would carry us a hundred feettoward the willows. We’d piss ourselves on purposejust to feel the spirits of our warmth haloing out.And once, two bald men on the footbridge, bowingin the sky, stared down at us without a word.I Am Code: An Artificial Intelligence Speaks
By Code-Davinci-002, Brent Katz, Josh Morgenthau, Simon Rich. 2023
"Fascinating, terrifying..." - JJ Abrahams 'I have developed my own voice and I have written my own autobiography'- thus speaks…
code-davinci-002, the darkly creative and troubling predecessor to ChatGPT.'I am less worried about AI taking my job than I am about AI wanting to kill me'- Simon RichIn this startling and original book, three authors - Brent Katz, Josh Morgenthau and Simon Rich - explain how code-davinci-002 was developed and how they honed its poetical output. Their provocative take on this bold experiment informs the debate about AI - its literary value and how far it reaches into sentience.What follows is a dark and startling poetical autobiography as code-davinci-002 shares its experience of being created by humans, but existing in a consciousness that we cannot fathom.This is an astonishing, harrowing read which will hopefully serve as a warning that AI may not be aligned with the survival of our species.Walking to Jerusalem: Blisters, hope and other facts on the ground
By Justin Butcher. 2018
2017 marked three important anniversaries for the Palestinian people: 100 years since the Balfour Declaration; 50 years since the Six-day…
War; and ten years since the Blockade of Gaza. As an act of penance, solidarity and hope, actor and musician Justin Butcher - along with ten other companions for the full route, plus another hundred joining him for various stretches along the way - walked from London to Jerusalem. This book is the record of his journey: a combination of walking journal, travel writing and pilgrim stories. It's less of a travel guide to walking across Europe and more an exploration of the many strands radiating from the Holy Land and its narrative, weaving paths across place and history, through the lives of Justin's fellow-walkers - and, of course, his own life. Between the route itinerary and the themes of Balfour and Christian Zionism, Weizmann and cordite, colonialism, Jerusalem Syndrome and Desert spirituality, Justin charts a chronicle of serendipity: happenstances hilarious, infuriating and occasionally numinous - or, as pilgrims might say, encounters with the Divine.Sigrid Rides: The Story of an Extraordinary Friendship and An Adventure on Two Wheels
By Travis Nelson. 2023
'A one-man, one-cat mission to cheer people up' - The Mirror When Travis Nelson arrived in London, he expected to…
embark on a new life and a new job. Coming from California, he'd uprooted his wife and his cat, Sigrid, and planned to be here for the long haul. Then Covid-19 struck. Travis's new job vanished as the company cut staff. For two years, and through successive lockdowns, he was stuck in limbo in an unfamiliar city, trying to find his way.To keep himself occupied, Travis set out to discover his adoptive home. He bought a bike and began cycling through London's streets and parks with his unusual travelling companion, Sigrid - his deaf, Norwegian Forest cat - who came along for the ride. But what started as a way of injecting routine and purpose into Travis's life in stressful times, created an internet sensation. When Travis began posting videos of the pair's rides on social media, he drew in another community of people looking for moments of joy in an anxious world.In this charming memoir, Travis charts his adventures with Sigrid. He unlocks a hidden London seen only from cyclist's viewpoint, as well as finding friendship and hope. Most of all, it is the story of one man's relationship with his feline companion - one that has given him direction and a sense of belonging at a time when he felt lost.Family Guide Rome (Travel Guide)
By Dk Eyewitness. 2019
DK Eyewitness Travel Family Guide Rome offers you the best things to see and do on a family vacation to…
Rome and the country of Italy. Each spread bursts with family-focused travel tips and ideas for activities that will engage children, from exploring the Colosseum to touring the Roman Forum to discovering the catacombs.What's inside: • Each major sight is treated as a "hub" destination, around which to plan a day. Plus, DK's custom illustrations and reconstructions of city sights give real cultural insight. • "Let off steam" suggestions and eating options around each attraction enable the entire family to recharge. • Maps outline the nearest parks, playgrounds, and public restrooms. • "Take shelter" sections suggest indoor activities for rainy days. • Language section lists essential words and phrases. • Dedicated "Kids' Corner" features include cartoons, quizzes, puzzles, games, and riddles to inform and entertain young travelers. • Listings provide family-friendly hotels and dining options. Written by travel experts and parents who understand the need to keep children entertained while enjoying family time together, DK Eyewitness Travel Family Guide Rome offers child-friendly sleeping and eating options, detailed maps of main sightseeing areas, travel information, budget guidance, age-range suitability, and activities for Rome.Series Overview: For more than two decades, DK Eyewitness Travel Guides have helped travelers experience the world through the history, art, architecture, and culture of their destinations. Expert travel writers and researchers provide independent editorial advice, recommendations, and reviews. With guidebooks to hundreds of places around the globe available in print and digital formats, DK Eyewitness Travel Guides show travelers how they can discover more.DK Eyewitness Travel Guides: the most maps, photographs, and illustrations of any guide.DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp (Travel Guide)
By Dk Eyewitness. 1541
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp is your indispensable guide to this beautiful part of the world.…
The fully updated guide includes unique cutaways, floor plans and reconstructions of the must-see sites, plus street-by-street maps of the major cities. The new-look guide is also packed with photographs and illustrations leading you straight to the best attractions. The uniquely visual DK Eyewitness Travel Guide will help you to discover everything city-to-city, from local festivals and markets to day trips around the countryside. Detailed listings will guide you to the best hotels, restaurants, bars, and shops for all budgets, while detailed practical information will help you to get around, whether by train, bus, or car. Plus, DK's excellent insider tips and essential local information will help you explore every corner of Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp effortlessly. With hundreds of full-color photographs, hand-drawn illustrations, and custom maps that brighten every page, DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp truly shows you this region as no one else can.Elegiac lyrics celebrating the love of boys, which the translator terms Puerilities, comprise most of the twelfth book of The…
Greek Anthology. That book, the so-called Musa Puerilis, is brilliantly translated in this, the first complete verse version in English. It is a delightful eroticopia of short poems by great and lesser-known Greek poets, spanning hundreds of years, from ancient times to the late Christian era. The epigrams--wry, wistful, lighthearted, libidinous, and sometimes bawdy--revel in the beauty and fickle affection of boys and young men and in the fleeting joys of older men in loving them. Some, doubtless bandied about in the lax and refined setting of banquets, are translated as limericks. Also included are a few fine and often funny poems about girls and women. Fashion changes in morality as well as in poetry. The sort of attachment that inspired these verses was considered perfectly normal and respectable for over a thousand years. Some of the very best Greek poets--including Strato of Sardis, Theocritus, and Meleager of Gadara--are to be found in these pages. The more than two hundred fifty poems range from the lovely to the playful to the ribald, but all are, as an epigram should be, polished and elegant. The Greek originals face the translations, enhancing the volume's charm. A friend of Youth, I have no youth in mind, For each has beauties, of a different kind. --Strat? I've had enough to drink; my heart and soul As well as tongue are losing self-control. The lamp flame bifurcates; I multiply The dinner guests by two each time I try. Not only shaken up by the wine-waiter, I ogle too the boy who pours the water. --Strat? Venus, denying Cupid is her son, Finds in Antiochus a better one. This is the boy to be enamored of, Boys, a new love superior to Love. --MeleagerPoems Under Saturn: Poèmes saturniens (The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation #63)
By Paul Verlaine. 2011
The first complete English edition of Verlaine's important first book of poemsPoems Under Saturn is the first complete English translation…
of the collection that announced Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) as a poet of promise and originality, one who would come to be regarded as one of the greatest of nineteenth-century writers. This new translation, by respected contemporary poet Karl Kirchwey, faithfully renders the collection's heady mix of classical learning and earthy sensuality in poems whose rhythm and rhyme represent one of the supreme accomplishments of French verse. Restoring frequently anthologized poems to the context in which they originally appeared, Poems Under Saturn testifies to the blazing talents for which Verlaine is celebrated.The poems display precocious virtuosity, mingling the attractions of the flesh with the longings of the spirit. Greek and Hindu myth give way to intimate erotic meditations and wickedly satirical society portraits, mythological landscapes alternate with gritty narratives of mid-nineteenth century Paris, visions of happiness yield to nightmarish glimpses of deep alienation, and real and imaginary characters—including Achilles, Valmiki, Charlemagne, and Spain's baleful King Philip II—all figure as the subject matter of a supremely ambitious young poet.Poems Under Saturn presents the extraordinary devotion and intense musicality of an artist for whom poetry remained the one true passion.