[Lance Levens]

I like this immensely. Rimbaud was so deft at puncturing the overblown phrases and themes of Romanticism. The choice of a gritty subject, unpleasant, dirty and then he turns in to a kind of reverie. Masterful.

[Birthe Myers]

Lice! What a subject.....really off-putting but amusing. The translation is as overstuffed and overheated and wrapped in satin and heady perfumes as the poem is in French, which I have skimmed only, so I can not comment on accuracy. The sisters' suffocating attention makes one want to open up a window. I am very fond of the decadents - J. Huysmans, Oscar Wilde, Gustav Wied, A. Rimbaud. Good to see this here - with its fitting name.

[Ann Drysdale]

Thanks to all who've commented on the poem and for Andrew/Adam's generous tidying-up of the crib I provided, which was actually a bit of a disgrace. I take Andrew's point about the creation of the crib being a good exercise for a translator - I hadn't thought of it like that and just "cribbed" it at the last minute.

We've tackled the question of translation vs. version elsewhere on this board and I appreciate that the distinction mattered hugely here. I've learned a lot.

Thanks again for a thoroughly enjoyable event. I'm off now to follow Seree's Daniel on the other board.