The Aesthetics of Equilibrium by Alfredo de Palchi. Translated by John Taylor (Xenos Books / Chelsea Editions, paperback)
Publication Date: May 1, 2019
Publisher Marketing: Alfredo de Palchi, in his 93rd year, has produced another stunning book after the cosmic obliteration of NIHIL (Xenos Books, 2017). As in that book, THE AESTHETICS OF EQUILIBRIUM leaps from a realistic setting into a fantastic panorama, this time revealed in sixty-four prose poems arranged in four sections. "The Fall" presents the author losing his balance, falling backward on the sidewalk, breaking his hip and feeling his "animal heart" and "porcine valves" respond to a life threat. "Destination Apocalypse" throws the reader back into the lush forests of Africa after the reptilian extinctions of the Jurassic, where mammals originate and a vicious herbivore-carnivore emerges. From primitive Ardipithecus to sophisticated Homo sapiens, prehistoric man passes in review, killing all the other creatures and raping the Earth. In "The Genesis of My Death," the story of this new species and his assault on feline forms splits the consciousness of the author into narrator and lion point of view. All themes, including medical and religious, converge in the last section, "The Anthropoid," which damns the anomaly for his pretense of divinity and his lust for blood.
