The Form of a City Changes Faster, Alas, Than the Human Heart: One Hundred Fifty Poems (1991-1998), Paperback

An homage and reply to some of France's best-known poets, including Charles Baudelaire and Raymond Queneau, this collection moves through the streets of Paris, commenting on its inhabitants, its writers, its monumental past, and all its possible futures. Alternating between honesty and evasion, erudition and comedy, The Form of a City Changes Faster, Alas, Than the Human Heart explores a Paris that's no longer "the one we used to find." A sometimes mocking, sometimes poignant tribute to the City of Light, Jacques Roubaud's poetry is filled with the melancholic playfulness that has made him one of our most important contemporary writers.