Blaise Cendrars was a pioneer of modernist literature. The full range of his poetry-from classical rhymed alexandrines to "cubist" modernism, and from feverish, even visionary, depression to airy good humor-offers a challenge no translator has accepted until now.
Here, for the first time in English translation, is the complete poetry of a legendary twentieth-century French writer. Cendrars, born Frederick Louis Sauser in 1887, invented his life as well as his art. His adventures took him to Russia during the revolution of 1905 (where he traveled on the Trans-Siberian Railway), to New York in 1911, to the trenches of World War I (where he lost his right arm), to Brazil in the 1920s, to Hollywood in the 1930s, and back and forth across Europe.
With Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob he was a pioneer of modernist literature, working alongside artist friends such as Chagall, Delaunay, Modigliani, and Leger, composers Eric Satie and Darius Milhaud, and filmmaker Abel Gance. The range of Cendrars's poetry-from classical rhymed alexandrines to "cubist" modernism, and from feverish, even visionary, depression to airy good humor-offers a challenge no translator has accepted until now.
Blaise Cendrars was a pioneer of modernist literature. The full range of his poetry-from classical rhymed alexandrines to "cubist" modernism, and from feverish, even visionary, depression to airy good humor-offers a challenge no translator has accepted until now.
Here, for the first time in English translation, is the complete poetry of a legendary twentieth-century French writer. Cendrars, born Frederick Louis Sauser in 1887, invented his life as well as his art. His adventures took him to Russia during the revolution of 1905 (where he traveled on the Trans-Siberian Railway), to New York in 1911, to the trenches of World War I (where he lost his right arm), to Brazil in the 1920s, to Hollywood in the 1930s, and back and forth across Europe.
With Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob he was a pioneer of modernist literature, working alongside artist friends such as Chagall, Delaunay, Modigliani, and Leger, composers Eric Satie and Darius Milhaud, and filmmaker Abel Gance. The range of Cendrars's poetry-from classical rhymed alexandrines to "cubist" modernism, and from feverish, even visionary, depression to airy good humor-offers a challenge no translator has accepted until now.
Translator's Preface
Introduction
Easter in New York
The Prose of the Trans-Siberian and of Little Jeanne of France
Panama, or the Adventures of My Seven Uncles
Nineteen Elastic Poems
The War in the Luxembourg
Unnatural Sonnets
Black African Poems
Kodak (Documentary)
Travel Notes
South American Women
Various Poems
To the Heart of the World
POESIES COMPLETES (French text)
Translator's Notes on the Poems
Select Bibliography
Index of English Titles
Index of French Titles
Novelist, poet and essayist, Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961) was also a cineaste, juggler, translator, adventurer. Poet Ron Padgett has also translated works of Apollinaire and Duchamp. Jay Bochner is Professor of English Literature at the University of Montreal.
"Padgett unpretentiously conveys the vivid sensuality emerging from the rich profusion of Cendrars's travel experiences. Good reading for all lovers of 20th-century French poetry."--"Library Journal
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