New at IWP Books: Leonard Bacon, 1934, Dream and Action, a retelling in ottava rima of some episodes from the life of Arthur Rimbaud. The opening stanzas:

Any one who thinks this work should correspond
With the actual facts behind has my permission
To go to Sheol and all points beyond,
And to continue there in such condition
As Satan may determine, who is fond
Of suchlike persons, whom the obstetrician,
Unfortunately skilful, at their birth
Should have prevented from cumbering the earth.

When one becomes entangled in an art,
All sorts of dreadful things may supervene.
You comprehend the scheme only in part,
Little suspecting what that part may mean.
The mental lapse, worse yet, defect of heart
Shatter conception, vitiate the scene
That was to carry out the grand effect.
O broken heart! O wretched intellect!

So with my story of Arthur Rimbaud,
A poet doomed to ultimate renown,
Whose poetry you probably don’t know,
Though that won’t hurt him. I’ve ventured to set down
My views about him, which partly may be so.
He was the flower, the glory, and the crown
Of France — a child that knew all lights and heats
Of the spirit, worthy to have stood with Keats.