Andre Breton: Selections Book

Picked this up at random off the library shelves and enjoyed it. I've been disappointed in the past by supposedly great French poets (Baudelaire, Rimbaud) who are said to be iconoclastic and unique but felt tame. Translation is an issue. Translating poetry is difficult, as one needs to maintain not only meaning but also sound (rhyme, meter, consonance/assonance). But Breton's focus is largely imagistic so losing the sonic elements is almost unnoticeable. His writing does one of my favorite things'clashing unexpected words together'often. The early poems were too tame. Some are truly awful, e.g. the phonebook poem or the experiments with typography, perhaps innovative at the time but they look childish and uninteresting now. Many of the later poems, once Breton sticks to a specific style (long lines, no white space usage, imagery focused) were excellent. His use of color words is a particular strong point. I'd read the Manifesto before and it is clearly excellent, his best work.

Favorites:

- both Surrealism Manifesto excerpts (obviously)
- A Forest in the Axe
-The Magnetic Fields and Soluble Fish excerpts, both automatic writing texts. I want to read these books now!
- Counterfeit Coin
- I Still Listen to Myself Talking (the line "Animals in my traps decay where they're caught" is incredible)

Then some poems, while they cannot keep up the momentum, have tremendous starts, like War ("I watch the Beast as it licks itself") or "Make it so daylight does not yet enter". Also, the title "Lethal Relief" is wonderful, though the poem itself not so much. I wonder if it sounds as amazing en français.