A vibrant new translation of a modernist poet

During his lifetime, Stphane Mallarm (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 Mallarm’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 Mallarm’s French verse, comes to life in English. Drawing from Posies (1899), Un coup de ds (A Cast of Dice), and the “Livre” (the “Book”the overarching conceptual work left unfinished at the death of the poet), this collection captures Mallarm’s true linguistic brilliance, bringing the poems into our current history while retaining the music, playfulness, and power of the originals.