Arthur Rimbaud is the supreme child genius in the history of poetry. Born in Charleville, France, he attended school there, then left for Paris where he embarked on a disastrous but enormously productive relationship with another great poet, Paul Verlaine. When that affair wrecked itself spectacularly—with Verlaine sent to prison for shooting Rimbaud—Rimbaud apparently abandoned poetry, left Europe, eventually lived in east Africa briefly, and returned to France to die of cancer at the age of 37, a virtually unknown man. Once buried, though, he gradually dawned as the blazing comet of early Modernist verse.
More By This Poet
The Seekers of Lice
When the child's forehead, full of red torments,
Implores the white swarm of indistinct dreams,
There come near his bed two tall charming sisters
With slim fingers that have silvery nails.
They seat the child in front of a wide open
Window where the blue...