Birds, Beasts and a World Made New

Birds, Beasts and a World Made New can only be described as a special book. It is more than just a collection of selected poems by Guillame Apollinaire and Velimir Khlebnikov. There is not only context added, but there are also interpretations and translations that are just done with so much obvious love. So many things that would get lost in translation are thoroughly explained in an effort to make the reader understand how special and unique the writing was. The admiration for those two poets shines through in every single page.

Every part of the book begins with somewhat of an introduction, explaining the way the poets were living at the time, what was happening to them and what other people said about them. Only then do the poems start and as incredible as they are already on their own, they really shine when you understand when and why they have been written.

I love that the author included the women around them. Some of Vera Khlebnikova’s drawings are included in the book and the author even talks about the way she tends to be forgotten. Madeleine Pagés’ memoir about first meeting Apollinaire is so tenderly written, so beautiful, I am so glad it was included.

And of course, the poems themselves. Gorgeous poetry. I hadn’t known Khlebnikov and Apollinaire beforehand and I was just swept off my feet honestly. One of Apollinaire’s war poems has especially captured my heart with this verse:

‘But why does the state feed on people? Why does a Fatherland become a people-eater, and a Motherland become his wife?’

As someone who lives by the Rhine, I also really loved Lorelei. Venus And The Shaman was just beautifully written, it read like a Fable. And it is absolutely fascinating how in the ‘Menagerie’ Khlebnikov slowly starts drawing parallels from animals to humans which gets more and more scathing as the poem goes on.

So tldr: go pick up this book. You won’t regret it.

Fascinating!
At first, I was apprehensive about the quantity of background information and context provided before the poems but I thought it perfectly balanced in a way which truly enhanced the reading of the poetry.
Apollinaire’s poems were beautifully translated, I only knew the French versions but was highly satisfied with their English ones.
Each section offered a different vision of the world, and it did feel like holding pieces of it in my hands.
For some reasons, I mentally matched “Beasts” in the title with the war poems, giving them quite a interesting look!

“Birds, Beasts and a World Made New” is a fascinating new collection of the translated work of Guillaume Apollinaire and Velimir Khlebnikov, two poets whose formal experiments reshaped modernist poetry in their own right. What makes this collection stand out is the way it encourages readers to think about how these two poets, from different cultural and political contexts, were both challenging the traditional forms of their time. Apollinaire’s calligrams break out of the usual structure of the poem, playing with space and visual elements in ways that feel bold even now. Meanwhile, Khlebnikov’s obsession with sound, neologisms, and the shape of words on the page pushes language itself into unfamiliar territory. It’s rare for a book to bring together the study of two poets in this way—letting their works speak to each other and allowing readers to see how, despite their different backgrounds, they were exploring similar themes. The book gives us the chance to follow how both poets responded to the upheavals of their time, like war and revolution, and how their formal experiments became a way to process and express those experiences.

If you are a fan of poetry in any way, if you feel it in your bones, then this informational, eye opening book is undoubtedly for you.

This poetry collection recalls a time and tells a story. Perhaps it's not right to call it a poetry collection, not because it isn't one, but because that's not all it is. Most of the book consists of selections of poetry from Guillaume Apollinaire and Velimir Khlebnikov juxtaposed by themed grouping. But there is also backstory and biography included throughout as well as in the book's final section.

One might wonder why anyone would construct a two-poet collection featuring a Frenchman and a Russian. Well, the two men did have a number of things in common, most disturbingly that they both died young in the early twentieth century. Apollinaire died at age 38 in 1918 and Khlebnikov died at 36 in 1922. The fact that these men's writing careers so overlapped is one of the reasons the book works. They waded through a common zeitgeist. Another commonality that makes the collection relevant and intriguing is that both poets had a penchant for experimentalism in their work.

Seeing the work of these poet's organized as the volume does, one recognizes both similarities and differences. This includes the fact that the tone of each poet's work ranges widely from whimsical to the brutal morosity of poems on war and the suffering it entails.

I found this collection to offer a powerful reading experience and would recommend it highly to all poetry readers.