The open mouth of the Orcus, in the front-cover photograph, represents an entrance to the underworld, according to all the symbolism embedded in the Gardens of Bomarzo, built in the 16th Century in central Italy. And this book actually seems to play with different strata of reality and perception, with different states of the mind - as well as the soul. It proceeds from the concrete to the oneiric; from the past, constantly weighting down the present, to the timeless moment that perhaps in the final poems gives meaning to - or annihilates - all the dense phantasmagoria that courses through its pages.

Translated by: Lawrence Schimel