Laforgue, Jules / Ford, Mark (tr.): Lunar Solo

Song Cave, The, paperback

Publication Date: December 1, 2023

Translated by: Mark Ford

Publisher Marketing: A New Translation of Modernist Icon Jules Laforgue's Poetry. Largely unread yet one of the most influential forces on modern literature, Jules Laforgue was a brilliant French poet whose work was cut short by his untimely death at twenty-seven years old. Praised by Pound as "a father of light," Laforgue has been overshadowed by the many poets he influenced--from Apollinaire to Prévert, Eliot to Joyce--until now. In this bilingual edition, LUNAR SOLO: SELECTED POEMS, acclaimed poet and translator Mark Ford achieves in English the playful, wild, and entertaining style of Laforgue's poetry. Generally acknowledged as the inventor of free verse, Laforgue is part-symbolist, part-impressionist, and wholly unique. "The 'first passion' of T. S. Eliot and a major influence on Pound, the poet, translator, essayist, and travel writer Jules Laforgue has nonetheless broken through only fitfully into the Anglophone literary consciousness. If there is any justice in the world, this astute selection, in Mark Ford's deft, inventive, reader-friendly versions, will finally give the man his due."--Mark Polizzotti Poetry.