Creole poets have always eluded easy definition, infusing European poetic forms with Louisiana themes and Native American and African influences to produce an impressive variety of highly accomplished verses. The first major collection of its kind, "Creole Echoes" contains over a hundred of these poems by more than thirty different poets, presented by M. Lynn Weiss in their original French alongside new English translations by Norman R. Shapiro. The poems gathered here were all composed in French by Louisiana residents of European, African, and Caribbean origin. Their themes range from love and history to nightmare and childhood recollection. In these pages somber elegies meet whimsical surprises, and rhyming animal fables meet political panegyrics.