High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Robert Desnos (4 July 1900, Paris - 8 June 1945), was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the surrealistic movement of his day. His last name is pronounced "Deznoss." Robert Desnos was a son of a café owner. He was born in Paris on 4 July 1900. Desnos attended commercial college, and started work as a clerk. After that he worked as a literary columnist for the newspaper Paris-Soir. The first poems by Desnos to appear in print were published in 1917 in La Tribune des Jeunes (Youth's Tribune) and in 1919 in the avant-garde review, Le Trait d?union (The hyphen), and also the same year in the Dadaist magazine Littérature.