Any book that has the name "Mary Ann Caws" attached to it is worth picking up. Sort of the Susan Sontag of European poetry. She's an excellent critic and editor.

If I am buying a foriegn book of poetry and it's not bilingual, forget it. Richard Howard's translation of Flowers of Evil (Baudelaire) is two separate sections: first English and then in its original language (French). But like Cal I prefer the facing pages as well. It's fascinating to read the translation and then trying to suss out the original version.

Mallarme is important to see both the English and French together, because for his poetry the way it is layed out on the page is important.

Appolinaire is another poet, where it's important to see the lay out of the poem on its page.

Cal, what is the Neruda anthology that you like? I'm embarrassed to say, I haven't read him. I'm far too french-centric. I definitely need to mix it up a bit.

Dual language books are excellent. I once had a paperback anthology of contemporary European poetry which dual-languages: French, German, Italian and Spanish original facing their English translations. My favorite Neruda anthology is a dual-language book (I want to memorize "Los Enigmas," my favorite Neruda poem, in both English and Spanish). This Rimbaud anthology I recently purchased has French versions in the back, which is okay - I do prefer the facing pages!

That Mallarme book looks great. I'm definitely too ignorant of his work, so that may be a good intro for me.

I'd love some specific recommendations for the many poets I haven't read yet.

For example, Tosh, what would be a good intro book of John Weiner's work.

Brian, what would be a good intro for Larkin?

I'll put in my two cents for those looking for an intro to Mallarme, I would recommend "Selected Poetry and Prose" edited by Mary Ann Caws. Amazon link for reference:
http://www.amazon.com/Selected-Poetry-Pr...

I really like Mary Ann Caws's critical writings and this book is a good intro to Mallarme including much of his more famous work and is dual language so if you had at least a year or two of high school French you can take a glance at the original. I'm a big fan of the dual language books for poetry!