Which surrealist poet was known for producing writings while in a hypnotic trance?

The surrealist poet known for producing writings while in a hypnotic trance was Robert Desnos. His unusual ability to enter trance-like states made him one of the most celebrated practitioners of Surrealist automatic writing.

Desnos joined the Paris Surrealist circle in the early 1920s, where writers explored dreams, hypnosis, free association, and other ways to loosen conscious control. During séances and demonstrations, he could improvise poems, wordplay, and images while appearing to speak or write from an altered state.

André Breton admired Desnos’s fluency and described him as exceptionally close to the movement’s ideal of spontaneous poetic expression. Desnos’s experiments contributed to the Surrealist belief that language could reveal unexpected connections beneath rational thought. His Rrose Sélavy texts, produced during this period, are especially associated with verbal invention and trance performance.

The other options were also important Surrealist poets, but none is as specifically identified with hypnotic writing sessions. Desnos later moved away from Breton’s group and became a journalist, writer, and Resistance figure during World War II.