Amnesia of the Movement of Clouds & Of Red and Black Verse

Amnesia of the Movement of Clouds & Of Red and Black Verse, two books published in a single volume, is the first full-length English translation of work by contemporary Sicilian poet Maria Attanasio. Drawing on her training as a philosopher and deep reader of German Expressionist and French Surrealist poetry, her visionary work dwells on contemporary selfhood in a technologically driven age, reflecting how such selfhood is set against the desolate political and existential void of a new century, one she describes as “the god of … indifference,” “the great amnesia.” Attanasio’s landscapes are as dreamlike as they are realistic, carved by a sculptural language that seeks to uncover the historical and political strata of everyday life.