Benjamin Péret (French, 1899 - 1959) was a poet associated with the Dada and Surrealist movements. While serving in World War I, Péret discovered a magazine featuring work by Apollinaire, which ignited his love of poetry. Upon returning to Paris, he joined up with the Dada group and published his first book of poetry, Le Passager du transtlantique, in 1921. Later, he left Dada for Surrealism and became first the co-editor and finally the chief editor of La Révolution surréaliste. In 1929, he emigrated to Brazil but was later expelled in 1931 for having formed the Brazilian Communist League. Péret returned to France and quickly joined an Anarchist militia in the Spanish Civil War, political activity for which he was imprisoned in 1940. Upon release, he went to Mexico with his partner, Remedios Varo, whom he had met in Paris in the mid 1930s, and remained there among the many European émigrés including Leonora Carrington and Wolfgang Paalen until 1948 when he returned once again to Paris. In addition to having posed for Man Ray, Péret also worked with him on 1929, a collection of poetry by Péret and Aragon paired with sexually explicit images taken by Man Ray. Most of the 215 copies in the original edition were destroyed by French customs.