Birds, Beasts and a World Made New

Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) was a Russian poet and playwright who played an important role in the Russian Futurist movement. Over his short career, he experimented freely with form and language, even inventing his own language, and is now recognized as one of the major Russian poets of his era.Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) was a French poet, novelist and critic of Polish descent. He became a leading figure of the Modernist avant-garde, influencing the development of Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism and Surrealism, and his work is celebrated for its formal innovation.

A wonderful parallel anthology and introduction to two poets, both so much more. They are the short-lived, playful, and visionary greats of Modernism: the Frenchman Guillaume Apollinaire and the Russian Velimir Khlebnikov. The translations are splendid and full of life, the context brisk, plain and simply sketched in. This is a book for discovery, for pleasure and delight

• CONTENTSForewordIntroductionPart One: Birds and AnimalsPart Two: ArtPart Three: Other poems, mostly Pre-WarPart Four: War, Revolution, Civil War and FaminePart Five: Fate, History and NumbersPart Six: Last ThingsPart Seven: Memoirs by OthersAppendixChronologyFurther ReadingAcknowledgments