Poetry. Translated from the French by William Kulik, Beth Archer Brombert, Mary Feeney, and William Matthews. Baudelaire laid the foundations for prose poetry as a genre in the 19th century, but it wasn't until the avant-garde movement in the first half of the 20th century that the prose poem began a widespread emergence on the international scene. The three poets in this volume were major factors in this emergence. Max Jacob (1876-1944), a writer of surrealist cubist fables; Francis Ponge (1899-1988), a master of the language of things; and Jean Follain (1903-1971), who merged the everyday with the historical to create a world rich in anniversaries, lead us to the strong and growing interest in the genre that we find so prevalent at the beginning of the 21st century.

"The book is well worth a read for anyone interested in the more innovative side of the last century's poetry. The work collected here explores the boundaries of the genre...with vivacity and style."—Rain Taxi