The Anchor Anthology of French Poetry: From Nerval to Valery in English Translation [Paperback]

First published in 1958, this collection introduced an indispensable corpus of Western poetry to countless American students, Francophiles, and would-be poets, among them Patti Smith, whose introduction to this edition testifies to its epochal impact on her own career. The poetic and cultural tradition forged by the symbolist poets featured herein—Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Apollinaire, and others—reverberated throughout the avant garde and countercultures of the twentieth century. Surrealism, modernism, abstract impressionism, and the Beat movement all find their roots in the examples of these poets and their theories of art. With translations by Richmond Lattimore, W. S. Merwin, Richard Wilbur, and Louise Varèse, this rediscovered gem is sure to inspire a new generation.Angel Flores also edited the Anchor Anthology of German Poetry and Anthology of Spanish Poetry, Nineteenth Century French Tales and Nineteenth Century German Tales. Patti Smith's discography includes such groundbreaking albums as Horses and Easter, and she is the author of three books of poetry.

"The Albatross"
L'Albatros

translated by Kate Flores

Ofttimes, for diversion, the men of the crew
Capture albatross, vast birds of the seas
That accompany, at languid, leisurely pace,
Boats on their way through bitter straits.

Having scarce been taken aboard
These kings of the blue, awkward and shy,
Piteously their great white wings
Let droop like oars at their sides.

This winged voyager, how clumsy he is and weak!
He just now so lovely, how comic and ugly!
One with a stubby pipe teases his beak,
Another mimics, limping, the cripplel3Ž