[nnyhav]

Originally Posted by saliotthomas

[...]
Roussel is mostly novels in verses,i always wonder at the translation of poetry and I would love to hear a transator view on this.
[...]

Not really mostly:
"Roussel's work can be divided with almost ludicrous facility into four periods, each quite different from the others. The first two books consist entirely of rhymed photographic descriptions of people and objects; the next two are novels [Impressions of Africa, Locus Solus] in which description again dominates, but here the things described are fantastic scenes or inventions; the two plays which follow are merely collections of anecdotes which the characters recount to each other. The last work published in his lifetime is the intricate poem Nouvelles Impressions d'Afrique, whose complex arrangements of parenthetical thoughts prefigure the stories-within-stories of the last, incomplete novel, entitled Documents pour servir de Canevas."
-- Joh Ashbery, introduction to How I Wrote Certain of my Books (which excerpts much of the above-mentioned as well)