Azure

A vibrant new translation of a modernist poet

During his lifetime, Stephane Mallarme (1842 - 1898) was recognized as one of the greatest living French poets. He wrote extensively on themes of reality and his desire to turn away from it, marrying form and content in revolutionary ways that departed drastically from the more tightly controlled French tradition. Despite his status as one of the first modernists, much of Mallarme's radicalism has been lost in translation. Finally, in this new collection by Blake Bronson-Bartlett and Robert Fernandez, the magic and mastery of form and diction, so striking in Mallarme's French verse, comes to life in English. Drawing from Poesies (1899), Un coup de des (A Cast of Dice), and the "Livre" (the "Book" - the overarching conceptual work left unfinished at the death of the poet), this collection captures Mallarme's true linguistic brilliance, bringing the poems into our current history while retaining the music, playfulness, and power of the originals.