French poet Paul-Marie Verlaine was BOTD in 1844. Born in Metz in Lorraine, he was educated in Paris and became a civil servant, publishing his first poetry collection in 1865. A leading figure in the French Symbolist and Decadent movements, he was a fixture of fashionable Paris salon society, befriending Anatole France and the Marquise de Ricard. In 1870 he married Mathilde Mauté with whom he had a son, and joined the Communards to defend the 1871 Paris Commune. In 1871, the aspiring 17 year-old poet Arthur Rimbaud wrote him a fan letter. Verlaine paid for Rimbaud’s trip to Paris and the two quickly began an affair. The besotted Verlaine abandoned his wife and son to live with Rimbaud, scandalising Paris society. Destitute and social outcasts, they fucked, fought and boozed their way across Europe, until Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the wrist after a drunken argument. Sentenced to prison, he re-embraced Catholicism and completed Romances sans paroles (Songs Without Words), a poetic reimagining of his life with Rimbaud. After his release, he moved to England where he worked as a teacher, producing another successful poetry collection, Sagesse. He returned to France in 1877, taking up a teaching position in the Ardennes. He fell calamitously in love with his teenaged student Lucien Létinois, pursuing an on-off affair until Létinois’ early death in 1883. Verlaine descended into poverty, alcoholism and drug addiction, living in slums and public hospitals and drinking absinthe all day in cafes. Perversely, his erratic behaviour developed a cult following: his early work was rediscovered and republished, public support provided him with an income, and many of his poems were set to music by composers including Gabriel Fauré. Verlaine died in 1896 aged 51. His life and work was hugely influential on Beat Poets Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, with Bob Dylan and Patti Smith citing him as major influences on their poetics and politics. 1980s New Zealand garage rock band The Verlaines was named in his honour.