New Directions is pleased to announce the relaunch of the long-celebrated bi- lingual edition of Rimbaud's <em>A Season In Hell & The Drunken Boat</em> — a personal poem of damnation as well as a plea to be released from “the examination of his own depths.”<br /><br />Rimbaud originally distributed <em>A Season In Hell</em> to friends as a self-published booklet, and soon afterward, at the age of nineteen, quit poetry altogether. New Directions's edition was among the first to be published in the U.S., and it quickly became a classic. Rimbaud's famous poem “The Drunken Boat” was subsequently added to the first paperbook printing. Allen Ginsberg proclaimed Arthur Rimbaud as “the first punk” — a visionary mentor to the Beats for both his recklessness and his fiery poetry.<br /><br />This new edition proudly dons the original Alvin Lustig–designed cover, and a introduction by another famous rebel — and now National Book Award–winner — Patti Smith.