André studied medicine and was particularly interest in mental illness. His studies were interrupted when he was conscripted into the French Army in the First World War. André worked in a neurological ward in a hospital in Nantes, France, where he met the Alfred Jarry devotee Jacques Vaché, whose anti-social attitude and disdain for established artistic tradition influenced André considerably. Vaché committed suicide when he was 23, and his war-time letters to Breton and others were published in a volume entitled ‘Lettres de guerre’ (Tr. Letters of War) (1919), for which André Breton wrote four introductory essays.
André's first collection of poems - written before and during the First World War – was published in 1919 with the title “Monte de Piété” (Tr. 'Pawnbroker'). Here is a poem from that collection:
During the post-war years André expanded on his work as a writer and was a pioneer of Dadaism and surrealism, both of which flourished in the disillusioned post-war years.
André died in Paris on 28 September 1966.
You can find out more about André Breton's poems by borrowing this book on line free from Archive
https://archive.org/details/
