Once and Recently

Paul Verlaine (1844–1896) coined the term «the cursed poets» — this is how he referred to talented outcasts who were unable or unwilling to lead a respectable bourgeois life. He himself was also one of them. Whether fate led Verlaine along confusing paths or he stubbornly forced it to change course, he experienced many upheavals: at times he decided to marry and settle down, then, leaving his family, he set off on a journey with the young Rimbaud, at other times he tried to become a farmer, or ended up in prison. The only constant in his life was that he wrote poetry — musical, astonishing in its impact, which had a huge influence on his contemporaries and poets of subsequent generations, including in Russia.