A leading Parisian poet and critic of the early 20th century, Apollinaire was fascinated by what he called “simultaneity,” a type of multi-sensorial awareness that was reflective, he felt, of the kaleidoscopic environment of France in an age of technological and scientific innovation. He translated this mode of perception into his poems, often deploying calligrammatic writing: arranging words on the page in shapes that reflect the poem’s content or theme. This evocative, nonlinear syntax was innovative in Apollinaire’s time, and it proved inspiring to the Concrete poets of the 1950s and 1960s.