Stephen Romer has gathered together a hundred and fifty or so poems which provide an ideal introduction and guide to the extraordinary diversity of poetry in French in the last century. The first poem here was written in 1903, and the last in 1999, so the selection spans the entire period, revisiting the justly famous and introducing much newer voices for the first time. In most cases, the versions are by practising poets, and many of them have been newly commissioned. The selection is accompanied by an introduction in which Stephen Romer indicates the major figures and movements - and some minor ones - that together constitute a passionate, quarrelsome and prolix century of poetry. Among the poets and translators are: Paul Valiry/Paul Muldoon, Raymond Roussel/Mark Ford, Max Jacob/John Ashbery, St John Perse/T. S. Eliot, Valiry Larbaud/Alan Jenkins, Samuel Beckett, Philippe Jaccottet/Derek Mahon and Andri Velter/Marilyn Hacker.
