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Rimbaud: Poems
The Everyman's Library Pocket Poets hardcover series is popular for its compact size and reasonable price which does not compromise content. Rimbaud contains selections from Rimbaud's work, including over 100 poems, selected prose, "Letter to Paul Demeny, May 15, 1871," and an index of first lines.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1989
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About the author
Arthur Rimbaud
730 books2,709 followersHallucinatory work of French poet Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud strongly influenced the surrealists.
With known transgressive themes, he influenced modern literature and arts, prefiguring. He started writing at a very young age and excelled as a student but abandoned his formal education in his teenage years to run away to Paris amidst the Franco-Prussian war. During his late adolescence and early adulthood, he produced the bulk of his literary output. After assembling his last major work, Illuminations , Rimbaud completely stopped writing literature at age 20 years in 1874.
A hectic, violent romantic relationship, which lasted nearly two years at times, with fellow poet Paul Verlaine engaged Rimbaud, a libertine, restless soul. After his retirement as a writer, he traveled extensively on three continents as a merchant and explorer until his death from cancer. As a poet, Rimbaud is well known for his contributions to symbolism and, among other works, for A Season in Hell , a precursor to modernist literature.
With known transgressive themes, he influenced modern literature and arts, prefiguring. He started writing at a very young age and excelled as a student but abandoned his formal education in his teenage years to run away to Paris amidst the Franco-Prussian war. During his late adolescence and early adulthood, he produced the bulk of his literary output. After assembling his last major work, Illuminations , Rimbaud completely stopped writing literature at age 20 years in 1874.
A hectic, violent romantic relationship, which lasted nearly two years at times, with fellow poet Paul Verlaine engaged Rimbaud, a libertine, restless soul. After his retirement as a writer, he traveled extensively on three continents as a merchant and explorer until his death from cancer. As a poet, Rimbaud is well known for his contributions to symbolism and, among other works, for A Season in Hell , a precursor to modernist literature.
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October 23, 2021Les Poètes de sept ans
Et la Mère, fermant le livre du Devoir,
S'en allait satisfaite, et très fière ,
sans voir, et sous le front,
Dans les yeux bleus et sous le front
plein d'eminences ,
L'âme de son enfant livrée aux
répugnances.
Tout le jour il suait d'obéissance
très
intelligent ; pourtant des tics noirs,
quelques traits
Semblaient prouver en lui d'âcres
hypocrisies .
Dans l'ombre des
couloirs aux
tentures moisies ,
En passant il tirait la langue , les deux
poing
A l'aine et dans ses yeux fermés
voyait des points.
Une porte s'ouvrait sur le soir : à la lampe
On le voyait, là-haut qui râlait sur
la rampe,
Sous un golfe de jour pendant du toit ; L'été
entêté
Sourtout vaincu, stupide, il était
entête
A se renfermer dans la fraîcheur des
latrines :
Il pensait là, tranquille et livrant ses narines.
Quand, lavé des odeurs du jour, le jardinet
Derrière la maison , en hiver,
s'illunait,
Gisant au pied d'un mur , enterré
dans la marne
Et pour des visions écrasant son œil
darne
Il écoutait grouiller les galeux
espaliers .
Pitié ! Ces enfants seuls étaient ses familiers
Qui, chétifs fronts nus, oeil
deteignant sur la joue,
Cachant de maigres doigts jaunes et noirs de boue
Sous des habits puant la foire et tout vieillots ,
Conversaient avec la douceur des
Idiots !
Et si l'ayant surpris à des pitiés immondes,
Sa mère s'efrayait ; les tendresses profondes,
De l'enfant s'jetaient sur cet étonnement.
A sept ans, il faisait des romans,
sur la vie
Du grand désert où luit la Liberté ravie.(.......)
Et la Mère, fermant le livre du Devoir,
S'en allait satisfaite, et très fière ,
sans voir, et sous le front,
Dans les yeux bleus et sous le front
plein d'eminences ,
L'âme de son enfant livrée aux
répugnances.
Tout le jour il suait d'obéissance
très
intelligent ; pourtant des tics noirs,
quelques traits
Semblaient prouver en lui d'âcres
hypocrisies .
Dans l'ombre des
couloirs aux
tentures moisies ,
En passant il tirait la langue , les deux
poing
A l'aine et dans ses yeux fermés
voyait des points.
Une porte s'ouvrait sur le soir : à la lampe
On le voyait, là-haut qui râlait sur
la rampe,
Sous un golfe de jour pendant du toit ; L'été
entêté
Sourtout vaincu, stupide, il était
entête
A se renfermer dans la fraîcheur des
latrines :
Il pensait là, tranquille et livrant ses narines.
Quand, lavé des odeurs du jour, le jardinet
Derrière la maison , en hiver,
s'illunait,
Gisant au pied d'un mur , enterré
dans la marne
Et pour des visions écrasant son œil
darne
Il écoutait grouiller les galeux
espaliers .
Pitié ! Ces enfants seuls étaient ses familiers
Qui, chétifs fronts nus, oeil
deteignant sur la joue,
Cachant de maigres doigts jaunes et noirs de boue
Sous des habits puant la foire et tout vieillots ,
Conversaient avec la douceur des
Idiots !
Et si l'ayant surpris à des pitiés immondes,
Sa mère s'efrayait ; les tendresses profondes,
De l'enfant s'jetaient sur cet étonnement.
A sept ans, il faisait des romans,
sur la vie
Du grand désert où luit la Liberté ravie.(.......)
March 9, 2009
This is an interesting collection as it begins with some of his earliest known poems and moves right on through to when he gave up on writing shortly before he left to pursue his fortunes abroad. There is so much we don't know about the man and what he actually thought.
I think that is why Rimbaud has always fascinated would be biographers. I have read a few of the bios out there and they are all pretty much the same. Rimbuad seems to drop off the face of the earth around 1870. No one seems to understand why he went to Africa and why he stayed there until he was dying.
I say the clues are in the poems, people, RTFP. READ THE FUCKING POEMS!
So with this collection we begin with the young teenage poet in the dreary French hick town. The poem "Ophelia", his first, is a suprisingly good poem for a first try and contains some of that "lost" or "gone" imagery that, I think, is what truly sets his poetry apart.
We can argue genres here if we want, but to my way of thinking Rimbaud belongs in the same vein as Baudelaire and Verlaine. For the sake of simplicity I am simply going to refer to them as "symbolists". But what is important is the way they used language to convey poetic effects in a way that had not been seen before.
In many ways they were like painters. Especially Rimbaud who acknowledged trying to develop a "color pallette" for the vowels. Young Rimbaud struggled along at writing poetry with some hits and some misses. Much of his early poetry reflected the world of a young precocious upstart with little patience for the conventions, artistic and social, of his day.
Rimbaud's early poetry refelects too much his provincialism and his sometimes straining efforts at "worldliness". But suddenly he plunks out this long poem entitled "The Drunken Boat" which sustains its high level of intensity throughout and does not waver. The use of language is hallucinatory and phantasmagoric. It is an incredible achievement and his stature as a major poet is guaranteed by this poem if nothing else.
Rimbaud gives away his life plan in "Barbarian" where he foretells his life in Africa and presents us with the reasons why he was happy living the life of a colonial trader. RTFP - he always fantasized from early on about explorers and the discovery of new unspoiled lands. He saw a more moral life in the life of the "savages" as opposed to the civilized boobs and hypocrites in modern industrial Europe of the mid 19th century.
Rimbuad - a very interesting study in the beginning of the Modernist era. Industrialism, Nationalism, Colonialism - all modern sicknesses or diseases that Rimbaud was very aware of and which he analyzed in his own way in his work. I think Rimbaud along side Jack the Ripper would make an interesting case study of those who were disaffected by and reacting to the negative aspects of what we might call the Modern Life.
I think that is why Rimbaud has always fascinated would be biographers. I have read a few of the bios out there and they are all pretty much the same. Rimbuad seems to drop off the face of the earth around 1870. No one seems to understand why he went to Africa and why he stayed there until he was dying.
I say the clues are in the poems, people, RTFP. READ THE FUCKING POEMS!
So with this collection we begin with the young teenage poet in the dreary French hick town. The poem "Ophelia", his first, is a suprisingly good poem for a first try and contains some of that "lost" or "gone" imagery that, I think, is what truly sets his poetry apart.
We can argue genres here if we want, but to my way of thinking Rimbaud belongs in the same vein as Baudelaire and Verlaine. For the sake of simplicity I am simply going to refer to them as "symbolists". But what is important is the way they used language to convey poetic effects in a way that had not been seen before.
In many ways they were like painters. Especially Rimbaud who acknowledged trying to develop a "color pallette" for the vowels. Young Rimbaud struggled along at writing poetry with some hits and some misses. Much of his early poetry reflected the world of a young precocious upstart with little patience for the conventions, artistic and social, of his day.
Rimbaud's early poetry refelects too much his provincialism and his sometimes straining efforts at "worldliness". But suddenly he plunks out this long poem entitled "The Drunken Boat" which sustains its high level of intensity throughout and does not waver. The use of language is hallucinatory and phantasmagoric. It is an incredible achievement and his stature as a major poet is guaranteed by this poem if nothing else.
Rimbaud gives away his life plan in "Barbarian" where he foretells his life in Africa and presents us with the reasons why he was happy living the life of a colonial trader. RTFP - he always fantasized from early on about explorers and the discovery of new unspoiled lands. He saw a more moral life in the life of the "savages" as opposed to the civilized boobs and hypocrites in modern industrial Europe of the mid 19th century.
Rimbuad - a very interesting study in the beginning of the Modernist era. Industrialism, Nationalism, Colonialism - all modern sicknesses or diseases that Rimbaud was very aware of and which he analyzed in his own way in his work. I think Rimbaud along side Jack the Ripper would make an interesting case study of those who were disaffected by and reacting to the negative aspects of what we might call the Modern Life.
August 18, 2018
Barely made it to 3*
Strange poems
Long winded prose at the end. It has some really gems but you have to wade to the obscure, somewhat violent and somewhat perverted poetry.
Strange poems
Long winded prose at the end. It has some really gems but you have to wade to the obscure, somewhat violent and somewhat perverted poetry.
August 8, 2025
LOVE. Learning French (just kidding). What I love is the yearning, passion and the fact that they had this ungodly state of the world decades ago mirroring just what we have today ?!?!??!?! INSANE. It's so crazy and cool to see this transcend generations, time, space, culture. I have the edition with French and English translated side by side. Beautiful work.
October 5, 2023
some of these were so... let's just say i had higher expectations
July 25, 2011
Sensation
Par les soirs bleus d'été, j'irai dans les sentiers,
Picoté par les blés, fouler l'herbe menue :
Rêveur, j'en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds.
Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.
Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien :
Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme,
Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,
Par la nature, heureux comme avec une femme.
Arthur Rimbaud
Mars 1870.
Par les soirs bleus d'été, j'irai dans les sentiers,
Picoté par les blés, fouler l'herbe menue :
Rêveur, j'en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds.
Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.
Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien :
Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme,
Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,
Par la nature, heureux comme avec une femme.
Arthur Rimbaud
Mars 1870.
April 10, 2025
I really enjoy the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poetry collections because they are small and compact anthologies of poetry from writers I’m not always familiar with. I didn’t know much about Arthur Rimbaud and I cannot decide on if that has been a positive or negative for my reading experience. I read that his life’s work was completed in his early 20s and he disappeared some time during his young life to die in the country. Unfortunately, you can tell in a lot of his poems here that he was young. I didn’t get the feeling that I was reading a genius or a prodigy like the world has given him credit for. While there were small pockets of genius and sublime poems, a lot of these were weird and gross (not in a fun way) or just really bad. I missed out on why he has such high praises but this was an interesting group of poems from someone who died way too young.
March 31, 2024
the poems: 2 Stars
a season in hell: 4 stars … so three ig
a season in hell: 4 stars … so three ig
September 10, 2011
Exactly the kind of poetry you would expect from a guy who stopped writing by the time he turned twenty. Picture an angry hipster drinking absinthe. If he looks French, then it's probably Rimbaud. Demerits to Everyman for including neither introduction nor biographical sketch, though one appreciates their attempt at representing the full scope of Artie's "talents" by appending a selection of his prose at the end of the volume. Best read by someone not old enough to know better.
April 17, 2025
This was my first time reading anything by Rimbaud and I was pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed these. Fair warning for anyone interested though, he does get a little raunchy. At least by the standards of his time. Give him a break, he's French. XD
January 2, 2018
Contains some of my favorite Rimbaud translations!
Read
July 22, 2019witty, contemptuous, graceful. Rimbaud always reads like an old friend.
"It's too simple, and the weather's too hot; you can all do without me." (lightning)
"It's too simple, and the weather's too hot; you can all do without me." (lightning)
January 18, 2024
A magnificent feat for poetry... Never before have I felt images so much as I have with Rimbaud-- not simply pictures, but a rebelious child's paintings, complete with the angst of a boy's youth and misfortune. Certainly a blueprint for succeeding poets-- Rimbaud's influence on the Beat and Surrealist movements is much more obvious now that I have seen each. Inspiring.
July 25, 2024
„Jak ogień śniegom, takim on był Tobie”
February 20, 2025
for real.
Read
June 11, 2024"Welche Herzen soll ich brechen? Welche Lüge aufrechterhalten? – In wessen Blut waten?"
January 29, 2025
Worth the sleep deprivation.
October 2, 2022
Arthur Rimbaud był ciekawym poetą, lubię jego wrażliwość i cynizm. To może brzmieć dziwnie wymienione tuż po sobie, ale Rimbaud potrafił wypunktować przywary ludzkości albo z klasą i pięknym językiem, albo brutalną puentą.
Z tego zbioru najbardziej podobają mi się wiersze „Ofelia”, „Śpiący w kotlinie”, „Kruki” i „Statek pijany”. Spoza niego – „Całkowite zaćmienie (Paryż się budzi)”. Najbardziej podobały mi się tłumaczenia Bronisławy Ostrowskiej i Jana Kasprowicza, bo moim zdaniem najbardziej oddawały styl i klimat tworzony przez Rimbaud. Odniosłam wrażenie, że Stanisław Miłaszewski wlewał w te tłumaczenia sporo siebie, ale przynajmniej umiał pisać, więc dobrze się to czytało. Nie mogłam za to znieść tłumaczeń Stefana Napierskiego. Ten język, próby uaktualnienia go, liczne wykrzykniki… masakra. Tam mi coś bardzo nie pasowało, a niestety jego tłumaczeń było dużo…
Z tego zbioru najbardziej podobają mi się wiersze „Ofelia”, „Śpiący w kotlinie”, „Kruki” i „Statek pijany”. Spoza niego – „Całkowite zaćmienie (Paryż się budzi)”. Najbardziej podobały mi się tłumaczenia Bronisławy Ostrowskiej i Jana Kasprowicza, bo moim zdaniem najbardziej oddawały styl i klimat tworzony przez Rimbaud. Odniosłam wrażenie, że Stanisław Miłaszewski wlewał w te tłumaczenia sporo siebie, ale przynajmniej umiał pisać, więc dobrze się to czytało. Nie mogłam za to znieść tłumaczeń Stefana Napierskiego. Ten język, próby uaktualnienia go, liczne wykrzykniki… masakra. Tam mi coś bardzo nie pasowało, a niestety jego tłumaczeń było dużo…
January 3, 2012
Rimbaud is amazing. the book with poems I read is the one that has all of his poems and Illuminations which I have already read but overall it was briliant, as usual, even tho I still prefer A Season in Hell, there're some poems that are absolutely amazing in this book. And i officially read all that Rimbaud as ever written.
November 16, 2018
First Evening, Novel (my favourite - “No one's serious at seventeen.
—On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade
And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need
—You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade.”), and almost every other poem draws me in. I prefer Wyatt Mason’s translation over others I’ve read, but there’s no denying he was an extraordinary young talent.
—On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade
And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need
—You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade.”), and almost every other poem draws me in. I prefer Wyatt Mason’s translation over others I’ve read, but there’s no denying he was an extraordinary young talent.
July 5, 2009
Henry Miller refers often to Rimbaud...this a fairly good translation, though I think somewhat stilted...doesn't always contain the energy that Rimbaud is capable of.
July 5, 2011
disappointed, Rimbaud background - the fucker had lover was a former slave trader............
unforgivable
unforgivable
July 8, 2014
One of those darling libertines of critics who died at an early age and thereby became blessed with originality when in my estimation he was a pathetically poor poet.
April 26, 2021
Possibly my favourite poet.
December 3, 2023
rimbaud es mágico.
May 5, 2019
Arthur Rimbaud's poetry has a combination of very detailed imagery that doesn't evoke a lot of emotions from me and also depressing subjects or treatments of subjects. I don't think any of his poems were really happy, at best they had a detached appreciation for beauty. His sad poems were all sorrowful at arm's length, focused on other people in a sympathetic rather than empathetic way, and never about his immediate experience (at least not comprehensibly to me).
The following was my favorite of his poems, and while not really characteristic of his subject matter it shows off his use of imagery pretty well.
Dawn
I have kissed the summer dawn. Before the palaces, nothing moved. The water
lay dead. Battalions of shadows still kept the forest road.
I walked, walking warm and vital breath, While stones watched, and wings rose
soundlessly.
My first adventure, in a path already gleaming With a clear pale light, Was a
flower who told me its name.
I laughted at the blond Wasserfall That threw its hair across the pines: On the
silvered summit, I came upon the goddess.
Then one by one, I lifted her veils. In the long walk, waving my arms.
Across the meadow, where I betrayed her to the cock. In the heart of town she
fled among the steeples and domes, And I hunted her, scrambling like a beggar
on marble wharves.
Above the road, near a thicket of laurel, I caught her in her gathered veils, And
smelled the scent of her immense body. Dawn and the child fell together at the
bottom of the wood.
When I awoke, it was noon.
The following was my favorite of his poems, and while not really characteristic of his subject matter it shows off his use of imagery pretty well.
Dawn
I have kissed the summer dawn. Before the palaces, nothing moved. The water
lay dead. Battalions of shadows still kept the forest road.
I walked, walking warm and vital breath, While stones watched, and wings rose
soundlessly.
My first adventure, in a path already gleaming With a clear pale light, Was a
flower who told me its name.
I laughted at the blond Wasserfall That threw its hair across the pines: On the
silvered summit, I came upon the goddess.
Then one by one, I lifted her veils. In the long walk, waving my arms.
Across the meadow, where I betrayed her to the cock. In the heart of town she
fled among the steeples and domes, And I hunted her, scrambling like a beggar
on marble wharves.
Above the road, near a thicket of laurel, I caught her in her gathered veils, And
smelled the scent of her immense body. Dawn and the child fell together at the
bottom of the wood.
When I awoke, it was noon.
November 28, 2020
The German translator does a lot of complaining about previous Rimbaud translations. So I'm not sure if he did a too good job of translating Rimbaud or if the poetry and short prose pieces actually were this uninteresting. While I did not love Baudelaire at least his poetry despite their antiquated forms and language captured my imagination. All that Rimbaud managed to evoke from me were shrugs. Maybe this is poetry I should've read 15 years ago. I don't don't know. But as it stands the texts were just "okay". If Goodreads had a 2.5 stars it would've been that rating.
November 4, 2023
From the applause of the World
And the striving of Man
You set yourself free
And fly as you can
Yes, he's angsty and young and annoyingly arrogant. But his poetic vision is undeniably vivid and distinct and intrinsically polarizing. Either you seem to really like it and find it interesting, or you really don't like it all and don't see the merit. Both are fine and dandy, but I'm in the former camp and I become a little suspicious at people who say that they absolutely hate the vision.
June 25, 2025
Maybe I don’t get Rimbaud or I just didnt have the nicest for his style, but a lot of his poems went way over my head. I do appreciate his imagery and metaphors but I felt at times it was very pretentious and self-aggrandizing. I did enjoy his “Season in Hell” prose piece and learning about his relationship with poet, Verlaine, really helped to translate his imagery and emotions to me that it spoke to me in ways that only experience can. I did want to love more of Rimbaud but hopefully when I read him in the future I will find more to love about his poetry.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews