Nihil by Alfredo de Palchi and translated by John Taylor

This is poetry from Italy.

Nihil by Alfredo de Palchi translated by John Taylor is published by Xenos Books / Chelsea Editions. This is a Book originally written in Italian. This was published in 2017.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781879378643E12.

Nihil, by Alfredo de Palchi and translated by John Taylor, does not soften its philosophical weather. The title means nothing, or gestures toward nothingness, and de Palchi’s Italian poetry is often fierce, spare, bodily, and confrontational. Taylor’s translation gives English readers a version of that severity without turning it into abstraction. I would read Nihil for its hard edge, the way a poem can face negation and still produce force. Nothingness here is not merely an idea; it may be historical, erotic, mortal, or linguistic. The book sounds like one that refuses consolation in the ordinary sense. Yet refusal itself can become a kind of energy. Some poems keep us alive by saying no with enough precision.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.