Description:
As written artifacts, these prose poems purport to be reflections from the universe's speaking mirror, lines of emotion marching as if in a trance from various points of origin, like meteor showers emanating from different parts of the heavens intruding on day's sky. They peel back history and they peel back memory until only husks remain. Much like affixing plaster to old wounds as new wounds continually spring open, these prose poems welcome each other into their worlds of pain and welcome the reader to discover caskets of word puzzles they leave behind.
Not meant as a "personal and wholly insignificant grouse against life. . . a piece of rhythmical grumbling," but rather as pieces of private jokes sprung with the gravest intent on the universe in an earnest criticism of what's no more than haggard reality.
These prose poems were written sequentially, mostly in pairs, which, under one consideration, could serve as a journal of sorts starting late 2022 and ending early 2023.
Brief description: Gian Lombardo's books include the prose poetry collections Bricked Bats (2021), Machines We Have Built (2014), Who Lets Go First (2010), Aid & A_Bet (2008), Of All the Corners to Forget (2004), Sky Open Again (1997), Before Arguable Answers (1993), and Standing Room (1989) as well as the poetry collection Between Islands (1984). Lombardo's translations include Louis Bertrand's Gaspard de la Nuit: Fantasies in the Manner of Rembrandt and Callot (2022), Maurice de Guerin's The Centaur & the Bacchante (2021), Michel Delville's Anything & Everything (2016), Archestratos's Gastrology or Life of Pleasure or Study of the Belly or Inquiry Into Dinner (2009), Michel Delville's Third Body (2009), Eugène Savitzkaya's Rules of Solitude (2004), and Maurice de Guérin's The Centaur & The Bacchante (2021). He directs Quale Press, which mainly publishes prose poetry, and teaches publishing at Emerson College.