The Dice Cup

I’m a poet, and a large part of my education in prose poetry was reading The Dice Cup by Max Jacob. Unfortunately, there were only selected poem collections in English, and I have longed for a complete translation for years. Finally! A totally delightful and stunning book which sits in a place of honor in my home along with my other French surrealist and symbolist works. To me at least a timeless marvel.

Jacob has a magic and charm that that befuddles you with each sentence and leaves you like a cloud overhead. I can't get enough of his work. Very overlooked in the pantheon of poets like Apollinaire, Rilke and Valery. I thinks he's just as profound only more sly, more prone to deflecting the obvious like a juggler in a carnival.

Rosenthal's translation is a welcome window into the energetic lyrical imagination of Max Jacob. Having all of "The Dice Cup" available in a lively English version is a gift for all poetry lovers, not just lovers of literary surrealism. Many of these poems could delight kids and adult readers still in touch with the kid in themselves. They also could strongly reach those craving wild spiritual insights but who find the dour seriousness of much contemporary religious poetry dull. Rosenthal's achievement in translating Jacob should be widely celebrated, and perhaps more of his translations will follow of both Jacob's poems and his equally engaging prose.