Finalist: Stephen Mitchell Prize; editor’s selection
Winner: ALTA’s National Translation Award

Personification meets enigma in the ellipsis of phantomine. Pierre Alferi’s poems, in Cole Swensen’s translations are rapiers that cut to the quick of political obscenity and ethical necessity.... 
—Charles Bernstein 

So concentrated, each of these brief serial poems resolves its own lyric reality. Each sequence has its own intricate resonance, intensity, color and mood. Cole Swensen’s stunning translation is pitch perfect.
—Norma Cole

In forms ranging from free verse to the Chinese juxtaposition of characters, language becomes event—and a second time in Cole Swensen’s felicitous translation.
—Rosmarie Waldrop

Link to the book