Surrealist Poetry

Willard Bohn is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of French and Comparative Literature at Illinois State University, USA. He is the author or editor of sixteen books, including The Avant-Garde Imperative (2013); Marvelous Encounters: Surrealist Responses to Film, Art, Poetry and Architecture (2003); Italian Futurist Poetry (2005); The Dada Market: An Anthology of Poetry (1993); and The Aesthetics of Visual Poetry, 1914-1928 (1993).

This wide-ranging collection of poetry is outstanding in its ambition and achievements. Encompassing the work of twenty-three Surrealist poets across the Surrealist epicentre in France, to Spain, the Francophone world and Latin America, the beautifully presented side-by-side translation of poems allows for a holistic view of the vast breadth of Surrealist poetic enquiry ... [Bohn's] choice of a relatively small number of poets allows for an appreciation of a larger selection of each writer’s works: his admittedly streamlined approach, purposely devoid of any overbearing critical apparatus, allows the poems and poets to speak for themselves. This inclusive and even-handed approach will undoubtedly prove very useful to scholars of the twentieth century across disciplines.

• IntroductionRafael AlbertiVicente AleixandreLouis AragonBraulio ArenasAntonin ArtaudAndré BretonAndré Breton, René Char, and Paul EluardLuis CernudaAimé CésaireRené CharMalcolm de ChazalRobert DesnosPaul EluardJ. V. FoixFederico García LorcaJosé María HinojosaMarianne van HirtumMiguel LabordetaE.L.T. MesensCésar MoroPablo NerudaOctavio PazBenjamin PéretPhilippe SoupaultSelected BibliographyAcknowledgments