First of all this book itself is beautifully designed and oversized, containing selections from five of Cesaire's published books of poety, separated by prints by Wilfredo Lam.
This poetry of Cesaire requires an extensive introduction since it is filled with both politicsl and surrealistic elements. The editor provide a 30 page introduction which was very helpful.
I found that I needed to read these poems outloud in order to fully understand them. I wish that I could also read the French originals that we provided. Of course every great poet writes many poems that do no quite reach his general level of excellence and Cesaire is no exception, but I found many poems to treasure which will remain with me a long while. They make heavy use of Martiniquan flora and fauna, but every poem is about meaninful ways of acheiving power for the Black diaspora which was the heart of Cesaire's negritude
These poems belong in the collection of all who care about poetry.
I

La poesía del peruano César Vallejo, representa, en sí misma, toda una antología del dolor humano; de la pobreza exacerbada; del sufrimiento peesonal y ajeno; y de la más pura, limpia y sencilla esperanza de la vida. A través de un particularísimo estilo y prosa, Vallejo nos remie a un mundo poético nunca antes visto en Latino américa y en la misma Europa. Un estilo que surge de la sangre, de los huesos, del estómago vacío y ansioso; del alma dolida, maltratada y sorprendida. La poesís de César Vallejo nos deja sin aliento y nos coje un dedo; nos jala las orejas, nos sacude el corazón y erecta nuestro deseo de ser buenos, simples, tal vez sufridos. Creo que es un libro que todo amante de la buena poesía debe tener cerca de su cama, escritorio, maleta... debe ser llevado, primordialmente, en las profundidades del intelecto y del espíritu. En los huesos, la carne, la sangre y los momentos diarios. Resulta muy difícil tratar de expresar tanta admiración en tan poco espacio. Valga mi tiempo, lectura, poesía y admiración a este enorme sencillo hombre mundano, César Vallejo.

This spectacular collection reminds this reviewer of the best of Lyn Lifshin's breakthrough "kiss and stack" neo-romantic Madonnesque period (once humorously if mistakenly labeled LL's "kiss and stalk" period).Eschleman's rare dabbling into "the icky" should be excused as mere curiousity seeking - But when a poet purposely drags along his readers into imagery as abhorrent as actual excrement squeezing with bare digits, even if those digits be the poet's himself, one has to be a slim second from getting up and walking out in the middle of the film! don't do it. give this poet a second chance. He produces.C.E. deserves a larger following for certain. I plead with him not to "give readers what they want" but instead stick to his guns, keep a stiff upper lip, and wait out those unbearable seasons upon seasons of obscurity. His time will come. His work will come out of the closet of derivative artaudian genius and be read by a new, hungry, and influential coterie of beloved academic lunatics worldwide. Mad poets by the thousand! What english professor/writer could ask for more? Publish or perish, indeed.

This anthology documents work from Artaud's final period spent mainly in a mental institution. The poems are by far the strangest that I have encountered. Filled with odd incantatory stanzas fashioned in Artaud's own language, the poetry and prose in this collection requires some patience from the reader. Some of the poems/prose in this collection I found virtually impenetrable (e.g., "Artaud the Momo") but this only seems to heighten and augment my appreciative awe for Artaud as an artist/poet/prose magician. Even Artaud's letters venture into strange and unknown territory as they combine prose, poetry, and Artaud's own creative argot to produce an inexplicably chaotic amalgamation that can count as a literary genre unto itself.

Although incredibly weird and convoluted, Artaud's work from this tumultuous period still manages to shine by dint of its strange qualities and inherent loopiness. If you happen to be interested in this type of enigmatic, dada-esque poetry/prose pick up this volume ASAP.

Extreme...shrill...Artaud, simultaneously insane and coherent; a unique writer, highly original...entertaining!!! we are all fortunate that he put his thoughts down on paper; don't miss this great book

here it is. the greatest collection of artauds poetry ever translated. of course it isnt as complete as that susan sontag one, but it is the best translations of his best poems and you dont have to drag your eyes through all that theatre theory even though it is brilliant some of us are more intrested in the none dramatic aspects of artaud. One of the highlights of watchfiends is the inclusion of parts of Suppots et Supplications, artauds last book length work, dictated to his secratery at the height of his madness. it has yet to be translated in full so to be able to read parts of it is a real treat. when i go to the park...when i think of all the pulleys and levers that are a complicated system which helps me to pray, i... listen, do you like poetry that creates a life or death situation for the author as well as the reader? im going to tell you a secret...this is one of the 3ree or 4our books that i would like to tear up into tiny pieces and inject into my hippocampus. ARTAUDARTAUDARTAUD. have i made myself clear?

Clayton Eshleman, What She Means (Black Sparrow, 1978)

It seems to me (from the perspective of the ex-English major) that we do irreparable damage to our high school and younger students in the English classroom. We hand them archaic, outdated poetry and say "this is poetry. Read it, learn, it, live it, there'll be a test on Monday." We breed, in many, a resentment of, if not a hatred of, poetry. It has always seemed to me that the attitude that causes this malady comes from the widespread belief among teachers that modern poetry isn't, well, poetry at all. This malady continues on up the ladder, of course. No one teaches Youssef Komunyakaa outside senior seminars, and likely never will. Jorie Graham or Clayton Eshleman? Forget it until you get into graduate writing programs.

I propose turning the system on its head. Give Jorie Graham to the junior high kids. Once they're in high school and better able to handle more nakedly-presented adult themes, give them Eshleman and Bukowski. This is stuff that high-school age kids are going to be able to read, understand, and identify with. (Then, once they've got the basics of how to interpret poetry down, hit 'em with Shakespeare's archaisms when they get to college.)

Clay Eshleman's many books of fantastic high-quality work would play an integral part in this little scheme of mine. Eshleman has been, since the sixties, one of the three or four American surrealists worth reading, despite the contradiction that surrealist poetry is about unrequited love and Eshleman's seems to be about the bliss of monogamy, in many small ways. Hey, I can't explain it, I just read the stuff. What She Means may well be one of the finest books with which to start a career of reading and understanding poetry. Eshleman's late-seventies work shows a bit more control than what he was writing earlier in the decade (cf. The Gull Wall), but there's enough of the reckless abandon therein to appeal to the audience who needs that sort of thing in their reading material. Much of it is gloriously sexually explicit, which makes for a great shortcut into the mind of the high school student, but one gets the message relatively quickly that the sexual aspect of the work is only one part of a much larger and much more interesting whole. Recurring themes and images fade in and out, crossing poems with impunity and allowing for class assignments on, say, the role of Isis in the book's middle poems, or the recurring image of the Doric column. (One is tempted to make an allusion to Shakespeare as Corinthian. One will resist as much as possible.) Final paper: use any three Eshleman books to examine Clayton and Caryl's relationship. Extra credit for writing the whole paper in free verse.

What makes Eshleman's work so special is that, in various ways, he shows us that the geneses of these poems come from a place where the writing part of it-the grammar, the word choice in many cases, other pieces of the puzzle that is poetry-are second nature. This is a man who has mastered the language to the point where he can sit down and pull together a rough draft for one of these poems, chip away at it with a few revisions, and come up with something that elevates language in new, interesting ways. He takes his experiences and impressions of the world around him and makes them universal, and he does so in a way that both inspires and elucidates. That's what poetry is supposed to do. Yes, the stuff we all read in high school does the same thing, but you have that extra added layer of work that comes from having to translate language that's been out of date since a few years after it was written. (And people think immediate obsolescence is a new thing. Yeah, right.) Here we have a body of work, and Eshleman is the only American surrealist with such a substantial body in print through major presses, that takes away that layer; there are a few cultural references that might jar against the head of someone born after 1980, but 1980 is a whole lot closer to the modern American mind than is 1630. The themes are no less universal, the language is no less a thing of beauty for being modern, and the poetry is, simply, no less valid an example of immortal writing. Yes, Clayton Eshleman IS that good. More's the pity that so few people will ever get to read this stuff because they were turned away from poetry so many years ago. **** ½