Even if you speak French, this book is an indispensible source on the great, 20th. century poet Henri Michaux. One of the important things that David Ball establishes is the chronology of Michaux's publishings. Michaux often published a string of small books between major collections - the major books overlapping, partially containing and redacting the earlier books in a highly complex and confusing way. In some cases, the larger work even duplicates the title of a smaller work. Ball untangles this gnarly time-line once and for all.

This is the most extensive selection in English from all phases of Michaux's long poetic career. It includes excerpts from his prose works - the travel writings and the mescalin writings, although nothing was taken from A Barbarian in Asia and Miserable Miracle. There are some plates that provide a view of Michaux's often superb graphic art.

The translations stand up pretty well against Richard Ellman's in Selected Writings (also highly recommended); however, this is a much larger work. Ball is perhaps on the literal side as a translator, a respectable choice. Probably, the only way to translate a poet impeccably, is to have a team of accomplished poets working in direct collaboration with the living poet who also speaks the second language well. And, of course, that's not the case, here. As far as I know, among major 20th. century poets translated into English, only Jorge Luis Borges was tranlated in this arcadian manner. That said, there's nothing wrong with these translations, except that David Ball, though possessed of a good ear, is not himself a poet, or trying to use a translation of a poem as an occasion to write another poem. Again, this is a respectable choice. In a sense Michaux is easy to translate. His language, though highly individual, is clear and direct (except when he's creating his bombastic new words). It's this language and conscience (John Ashberry's critical insight) in service in service to a deep and powerful visionary faculty, that makes Michaux one of the truly great poets of the 20th. century.

Henri Michaux wrote a lot about his drug experiences, and in particular with his horrendously painful experiences with the grand-daddy of all psychotropic drugs: mescaline. I've never done mescaline so I can't compare notes with Michaux's observations, but nonetheless reading this account was a sheer joy. Michaux's scintillating prose gives the reader an unembellished yet thoroughly poetic account of the mind of a man who has experienced the supposed rapturous delight/horror provided by mescaline intoxication. The visions and hallucinations which Michaux amiably recounts will tickle even the most jaded drug enthusiast. The text published by City Lights in S.F. includes drawings executed by Michaux during his most feverish bouts with the drug. Recommended for those of you obsessed with the effects of hallucinogenic drugs on the literary imagination and artistic creation.

This important selecton of Michaux's writings is not out of print. It is currently in its third paperbook printing with New Directions.

With great conviction, I believe Michaux is one of the unsung 20th Century poets in America. Tent Posts is a compass for the human experience. Michaux's tone is direct, conversational and guided by a quality of both insistence and studied reflection. There is a visceral impact to his lines: they are full of the immediacy of a man who has traveled far, and how he found his way. Tent Posts is a distilled work. The lines are terse arrows of intention: focused, they hit their mark. Michaux published this work three years before he died, and the reader is left with a strong feeling that the lines within were written as a goad for the author's personal interest in one topic: understanding the nature of change and the symbolic presentation of this understanding. Unencumbered by dogma and written in a direct, vernacular style, Michaux's lines constantly point to unknown territory. This "no-man's-land" of the heart is all he speaks to in this work, and we should be glad it is. Tent Posts makes clear that Michaux's earlier works are not nonsensical or fantastic musings of a chaotic world, as some have said. Instead, his works are glimpses into the ephemera of experience, which adhere to a logic we see reflected everywhere in the evanescence of the days.

Belgian-born poet/artist Henri Michaux was, depending upon your source, either an enigmatic genius or an enfant terrible. Maurice Blanchot called him "l'ange du bizarre." Whatever the appellation, his oeuvre was the surreal.

An inveterate traveler, Michaux made Paris his home in 1922. At about the same time the writer began drawing, and then wed his graphic works to his poetic endeavors. He wielded ink like a sword, parrying, jabbing, slashing it on paper. This was an exercise that he believed released subconscious expression. Later, he became accomplished in the use of watercolor.

"Untitled Passages By Henri Michaux," so titled due to the artist's large number of untitled drawings and his book "Passages," is not only the first collection of his work but is a masterful blending of texts and images, enabling one to further explore the unique world of Henri Michaux.

Michaux's book of drawings and texts was originally published in 1948, and apart from a couple of reprints in French, this edition marks the first english translation of this rare work. Here, Michaux is found pushing the limits of his magical, associative prose to sublime heights. Essentially a science fiction experiment, this book describes the life-cycle of the fictional Meidosems--spindly, emotionally vulnerable little creatures who look a little like strands of DNA--as they fall in love, suffer demons, and ultimately try to survive in a hostile gravity-less world. Us usual, Michaux is able to write from "inside" this subject, imbuing this text with an appropriately other-worldly quality that works to emerge the reader in this strange world. The interplay between the vaprous writing and the scratchy, yet representational, drawings brings this work alive. Moving Parts press have done amazing work here by putting this book out. This edition is a beautiful, rare art-book that will make you wish there were more like this out there.