Sorrell discusses the English translation of a selection of examples taken from modern French poems. His focus is the one of a practising translator confronted with specific difficulties of meaning and style. He argues for free and imaginative translation in poetry and suggests that "in an ideal publishing world, perhaps the best way of presenting literary translation would be to give in the first place an absolutely faithful rendering in the target language of the original, followed by a freer, more stylised, creative version. Or, even better, several versions."