First published in 1886, Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminationsthe work of a poet who had abandoned poetry before the age of twenty-onechanged the language of poetry. Hallucinatory and feverishly hermetic, it is an acknowledged masterpiece of world literature, still unrivaled for its haunting blend of sensuous detail and otherworldly astonishment. In Ashbery's translation of this notoriously elusive text, the acclaimed poet and translator lends his inimitable...