Apollinaire, Guillaume, << a paw lee NAIR, gee YOHM >> (1880-1918), a French poet, was a leader in the arts in Paris during the decade before World War I (1914-1918). His impact on poetry was similar to that of Pablo Picasso on painting. Apollinaire experimented with new literary techniques and crusaded for early abstract painting and for the Cubism movement in art.
Apollinaire was born on Aug. 26, 1880, in Rome. He traveled and read widely, and his work suggests many different times, places, legends, and people. He often used images of rootlessness along with a robust fantasy and a sense of wonder at the many discoveries of his time. While remaining highly individual, his poetry covers a wide range of styles and moods. The love poetry of his first major collection, Alcools (1913), is memorable for its delicacy and richness in expressing disappointment in love and sorrow at the passing of time. His second volume, Calligrammes (1918), contains war poems and a number of highly original compositions. In some of them, words are arranged typographically as pictures. Apollinaire died suddenly on Nov. 9, 1918, during an influenza epidemic.
