Francis Coffinet is a well-known contemporary French poet, artist and actor. His precise, tactile verses convey an image of contact, love and appropriation. In clinical language describing the conquest of each object of desire, he incises, severs and exalts in often startling images. Mr. Coffinet has published more than 20 works and has been translated into several languages.

James W. Haenlin has been translating contemporary francophile poetry for more than 20 years, including works by Amadou Lamine Sall, Rose-Marie FranCois and Nadine Fidji, as well as historical fiction by...