Listen! They must be words, drifting between
These living pillars: elusive, never simple.
--from "Correspondences"

Against the normal, the healthy, and the rational, the imagination of poet Charles Baudelaire plunged into the "Flowers of Evil," offering extreme images and work devoted to exploring such themes as drugs, sex, and art. In addition to the haunting and highly individual prose poems called "Spleen," this volume offers masterpieces such as "To the Reader," "Albatross," "Invitation to the Voyage," and "The Cracked Bell."