The Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti participated in Parisian literary and cultural circles from the early meetings of the Surrealists to existentialism and the diverse currents in art and poetry that followed. Numerous writers were inspired to respond to his sculpture, drawing, painting and publications during his lifetime and after his death in 1966. This book considers examples of poesie critique devoted to Giacometti's work by major French poets and thinkers from Andre Breton to Yves Bonnefoy. Through close readings of key texts, it discusses the extent to which each writer has succeeded in overcoming the dichotomy between a text and its visual stimulus that so often leads to a hierarchical relationship. Many of these writers focus on the materiality of Giacometti's works of art and of the written word. Examination of their writings thus allows new understandings of poesie critique and ekphrasis to be developed.

Since the 1960s, poetry in French has been understood in terms of two competing approaches: searching for 'presence' on the one hand, 'litteralite' - refiguring the everyday - on the other. Contemporary forms of both are found in this anthology, from the 'new lyricism' of Bonhomme and Maulpoix to the refracted politics of 'post-poetry' in Tarkos and Gleize. The dichotomy, however, quickly breaks down and many poets refuse to be categorised in this way: recent publications include the interdisciplinary and collaborative work of poets such as Alferi, Chaton, Game and Macher; the focus on formal constraint in Metail and Espitallier; Portugal's exploration of the impact of new technologies. 21st Century French Poetry features 18 key contemporary French-language poets alongside English translations by leading poets and translators, including Prof Keston Sutherland and Prof Joshua Clover. Since the end of the Second World War, there has been relatively little dialogue between French and British poetry. Featuring some of the leading Francophone and Anglophone poets of our time, this anthology looks to challenge that trend.