Zone is the fruit of poet-translator Ron Padgett's fifty-year
engagement with the work of France's greatest modern poet. This
bilingual edition of Apollinaire's poetry represents the full range
of his achievement from traditional lyric verse to the pathbreaking
visual poems he called calligrams, from often-anthologized classics
to hitherto-untranslated gems, from poems of cosmic breadth to a poem
about his shoes. Including an introduction by the distinguished
scholar Peter Read, helpful endnotes, a preface, and an annotated
bibliography by Padgett, this new edition of Apollinaire stands out
not only for its compact and judicious selection of the essential
poems but also as the work of an important American poet. The
Washington Post has said, "No praise can be too high for Ron
Padgett's translations."