Arthur Rimbaud was a poet from France in the late 1800s. Like most, he was underappreciated in his time and died early, but nearly a century after his work he became an icon for the free loving, anti war hippies of the 60s and 70s.

Through his work, compiled and translated by Paul Schmidt, the reader may watch Rimbaud go from a fanciful, romantic teenager chasing love in the form of skirts and blonde hair to an angry young man searching desperately for his life through forbidden lovers and drugs. The fall of Rimbaud is chaotic yet beautiful, in the way only a poet could fall from grace.

Rimbaud’s early work describes beautiful women, gods and goddesses, and the golden, carefree days of youth. In his poems, he writes of girls who spin stars on their fingernails and the beauty of flowers and streams, painting a pretty picture of the soul of a romantic. However, through his letters to his mentor and friends, the reader catches a glimpse of a confused boy, desperate to make something of himself and escape the monotonous, ordinary life his mother is forcing him to lead.

As Rimbaud gets older, his desperation and longing for something more becomes increasingly explicit, and his poems take on the bitter edge of a hopeless youth, yet many are still laced with hope. Through his letters, the story of the poets journeys are told- his drug abuse and the gay lover that shot him in the hand in an alcohol induced rage being perhaps the most interesting.

Rimbaud, dead at 37, then spends the last few years of his life scorning the poetry and romance he loved in his youth. His bitterness and anger at the world are seen through his last few letters to the same lover who shot him, and then the world loses a poet who will be remembered as a lover, as the man who proclaimed “I don't love women. Love has to be reinvented, we know that.”

I've always been entranced by poetry and pretty words, but Arthur Rimbaud is truly the most interesting poet I've ever read. His struggles with love and life create beautiful poetry that kept me up at night, rereading and memorizing specific lines that I found especially beautiful or profound. While I'm generally more hopeless than romantic, Rimbaud had me wishing I could always see the world through his eyes, not just when I'm reading one of his poems. Even when what he wrote was about ugly things, it was still laced with the beauty that we associate with poetry.
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Rimbaud is a poet anyone can enjoy, as I found when I read some of his sweeter poems to my younger cousins in an attempt to get them to sit still. Even at 4 and 5, they enjoyed the lovely way his words form and were content to sit and listen to me read for a good half an hour. Even if you're not a poetry person, Rimbaud is easily enjoyable and the way his tone changes from romantic to angry to sad makes it possible to find at least one poem that you will enjoy.

Review by Emily Kaley

Read a book by an African American author. These eight words instilled fear throughout me as I sat in my third hour English class. Immediately I pictured long, repetitive books, based on African Americans' struggles in slavery or Jim Crow south. Not to say these books are bad, but they aren't my cup of tea. So, that evening I set out to find a book I would enjoy for this assignment. From a quick Google search, I came across a book, A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines. After Reading a short review, I was intrigued.
A Lesson Before Dying follows two men who have given up on life, one a school teacher and another a man on death row for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and the wrong race. Grant, the school teacher, has been tasked with making Jefferson, the man on death row, a "man" before he is executed, as Jefferson's lawyer compared him to a hog-- and therefore less of a man-- in the trial. As Jefferson and Grant's stories develop, the reader learns what the south in the 1940's was like. Beneath this, questions about what it means to be human, how others' opinions impact your own thoughts, and what it takes to be a hero unfold. This simply written and seemingly straightforward novel slowly reveals itself to be anything but that.

Gaines' novel is still relevant today. Jefferson's situation - being imprisoned because of circumstance and his race - is similar to what African Americans continue to face today. They have been jailed or shot simply due to skin color. This causes me to question-- do people today still feel how Jefferson did in prison? Thrown away simply because of their race?

This is a book for history buffs, psychology lovers, or anyone in between. However, read it with caution, and maybe a tissue box near by. You can't help but feel for Jefferson, and as he lives his last few days in prison, it might get to you.

Emma Hammelef is a junior at Novi High School. She is on the volleyball and track teams, and is in the band. In her free time she loves to read and draw. Emma aspires to study bio-medical engineering or go into medicine after high school.

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