The Random House Book of 20th Century French Poetry - Translated by American & British Poets | Classic Literature Gift for Francophiles & Poetry Lovers

its true, there is an inherent danger in any translation of poetry from its original language. Even the most skillful translators cannot help but producing something that is almost by definition a completely new work, And I agree that Pound seems to have flaked out on his weird translation of "Symphonie de Novembre" which he turned into "Strophes." I have my issues with Pound anyway... But this collection is really about translation above all else. After all, there is only ONE index, and it is an Index of Translators, revealing that the anthology is, rightly or wrongly, more about the translation than the original. And just look through the Index and notice some of the names: Wallace Stevens, Samuell Beckett, William Carlos Williams, Galway Kinnell, Denise Levertov, T.S. Eliot, John Ashbery, John Dos Passos, and many more bright lights. Also, there are far more translators involved in this anthology than Poets being translated, 48 poets versus 84 translators.For me, this is a spectacular anthology, and the range and breadth of the translators/translations is one of the most compelling things about the anthology. Most of the translations were, for me, powerful and beautiful, opening a door to modern French poetry that has not been opened before. The Random House Anthology is an indispensible work of art in its own right, no modern poetry collection should be without it, period. The 2004 Yale Anthology has many of the same poems and translator, minus Pound. ;-)