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."