A fully annotated, bilingual edition, Calligrammes is a key work not only in Apollinaire's own development but in the evolution of modern French poetry. Apollinaire--Roman by birth, Polish by name (Wilhelm-Apollinaris de Kostrowitski), Parisian by choice--died at thirty-eight in 1918. Nevertheless, he became one of the leading figures in twentieth-century poetry, a transitional figure whose work at once echoes the Symbolists and anticipates the work of the Surrealists.

The Bestiary, 30 short poems celebrating mammals, birds, fish, insects and the mythical poet Orpheus appeared in 1911 and was Apollinaire's first published work. Although they appear slight, the poems inspired the artist Raoul Dufy to illustrate each of them with a woodcut (5 of the 30 woodcuts are reproduced in the chapbook) and the composer Francis Poulenc to set six of them to music. The poems - witty, ironical and full of surprising images - show Apollinaire's mastery of short form poetry, and Martin Sorrell's superb rhyming translation perfectly preserves the spirit of the original....