Saint-John Perse A version by Derek Mahon These are birds, pure and simple, nothing more, their truth the secret of life itself . . . Derek Mahon s previous translation work includes versions of Jaccottet (Words in the Air, 1998) and Valéry (The Seaside Cemetery, 2001). To these he now adds Birds by Saint-John Perse whose long, discursive, musical texts owe something to Rimbaud s Illuminations but are finally unique. Among twentieth-century poets Perse is remarkable for his oceanic qualities, his global reach and philosophical optimism. Birds is about birds, but also about the artistic vocation itself, Yeats s lonely impulse of delight