'In her review of John Ashbery’s translation of Illuminations in The New York Times, Lydia Davis reminds us that: “When Rimbaud’s mother asked of A Season in Hell, ‘What does it mean?’ — a question still asked of Rimbaud’s poetry, and of Ashbery’s, too — Rimbaud would say only, ‘It means what it says, literally and in every sense’.” ' (Introduction)