Perhaps the most underrated, overlooked poet ever, Desnos' work is not only superior to the Frost/Coleridge/etc. you read in high school, but is also infinitely greater than that of Breton and the other surrealists, establishing the modern paradigm of poetic imagination. No other poet really comes close, except for the great Jeremy Reed (try Red-Haired Android to see what I mean). Warm, humane, and oh-so-brilliant, Desnos' poetry is absolutely, endlessly, mind-alteringly fascinating. Kudos to Carolyn Forche and William Kulik for bringing his work in such a fully-realized form to this side of the Atlantic.

A great collection of translations from one of the best surrealist poets. A well presented book with a intriguing introduction.

Mary Ann Caws, with her unique gift for drawing the reader willingly into her discoveries, is an invaluable scholar of Surrealism. In clear language, she unfolds and expands for us the imaginative realm of this man, who must be the most hilarious, poignant, and plain-spoken of the Surrealist poets. In Caws's hands, Desnos's unique brand of black humor--dare we say gallows optimism--is rendered all the more poignant by his use of it as a form of resistance against the Nazis, and ultimately in the face of his own death. This is a must-read for anyone interested in Desnos, and for all readers who, whether or not they like "poetry" (this is not the poetry that they pushed on you in school), are looking for a romantic vision that is not sappy, and who want to find a heroic figure that is credible in our modern era.

this is the only critical work on desnos in english to date. highly recommended for anyone interested in studying this amazing poet. caws goes into detail about desnos' symbols and language, and provides a good collection of the various periods of desnos' work both in poetry and prose.

liberty or love! smells like boiling tunafish and sounds like drowning puppy dogs and its eyes look like theyve spent the night striking matches on themselves and its gaze dunks everything it sees in mollasses. how could one of the greatest surrealist texts go almost 70 years before being translated into english? this book is better than bretons two novels and better than soupalts last night of paris. so there. the one problem i had with this book, a book that throws out the constricting conventions of typical literature, was that the glue that sticks all the bizarre scenes together is the worst stalest convention of them all, the pursuit of the muse in the form of an ellusive woman. blahhh. easy to look past though. especially when there are such unforgetably shocking passages as The Sperm Drinkers Club.