Desuetude: Poems of Paris, Venice, Japan, 2017-2018
by Richard Milazzo.

First edition paperback:  September 2022.
Designed by Richard Milazzo.
240 pages, with a gatefold color cover reproducing a photograph by the Elliot Schwartz, an extensive analysis of the photographer’s work, an essay by the artist, 70 original black and white photographs by Elliot Schwartz, executed from 1978 to 2020, and biographical notes about the author and the artist.
9.25 x 6.5 in., printed, sewn and bound in Savignano-sul-Panaro, Italy.
ISBN:  1-893207-49-8.
ISBN:  879-1-893207-49-3.
Hayama and Tokyo, Japan:  Tsukuda Island Press, 2022.

RETAIL PRICE: $24.00 (includes postage and handling)

Richard Milazzo, the author of the book, was taken aback by the book’s photographer, Elliot Schwartz, when he explained: “When Richard asked me to consider working with him on his book of poetry, Desuetude: Paris, Venice, Japan, 2017-2018, I was not sure if I was up to the task. I knew the word, ‘desuetude,’ but not the meaning of it. Once defined, my assumption was by choosing a photographer who himself had fallen into a state of disuse, it would lend a certain authenticity to the project. Instead, he asked me to supply a photograph for each of the poems, a rather daunting task, and could care less about my current status in the art world.”

The author goes on to explain: “Apropos any winsome figure of withdrawal, and if I must choose, I identify strongly with the out-of-focus female figure in the background of Elliot’s Kenyan image that I have situated on the frontispiece of this book, rather than with the more sharply defined male figure in the foreground of this same image. Of course, the camera, if not the photographer, must make a choice, but I also like the way she is not only fading away but facing in the direction of what is beyond the edge of the picture, beyond what she or we can see. But, in fact, it is not hard to imagine she is in her own way focused internally on something beyond her reach, that is always beyond our reach.

“The ultimate fear, I suppose, is that we, each of us, might reveal something personal about ourselves, every ‘cold child’s’ fear, as George W.S. Trow might have once put it (in his book Within the Context of No Context, 1980). And there is nothing more revealing than ‘an eschatology of tropes and reifications’ that might encompass, in general, the very soul of one’s work.

“There is one poem that might put us in danger of just such a revelation: ‘The Shop in Ningyocho.’ It was written at the Mandarin Oriental – a far cry from the The Donut Shop (or Pub) where I fed in the 1970s, but not really. It is where almost all my poetry is written in Tokyo, more specifically, in Nihonbashi (Old Edo). So now we have gone full circle, even if that circle is a bit wobbly. And, as such, might it not still circumscribe ‘a crescendo of fine feelings,’ no matter how syncopated, dissonant, and ultimately, useless?

“A crescendo, a fine feeling, of desuetude, which both Elliot and I have had in common for more years than we care to admit. And it might be said this is what the photographs and the poems have in common. Although, I really don’t know how important it is to establish common ground, particularly since it is the feature of groundlessness that characterizes both bodies of work. But isn’t it the fervor that counts, even for these ‘cold children’?

“In any case, the actual nonevents of the poem, which drive this feeling of uselessness, take place in Ningyocho, an area near the Nihonbashi quarter, written from the point of view of an old Japanese woman, a shopkeeper, who stares each day at the cold, dark water of the Nihonbashi River flowing beneath the bridge. What can we do but celebrate our demise, the uselessness of our endeavors, this sense of futility and disconsolation that is a shadow, an envious echo, of this old Japanese shopkeeper’s thoughts, who was far too noble to utter such words or to resolve the matter in any ignominious way.

“Despite all the talking I do, inside and outside square brackets, I find it is always best to let others have the last word, especially if they are gifted artists like Elliot Schwartz: ‘I have known Richard since the mid-1990s. His friendship has been precious to me. And I cannot thank him enough for offering his poetry, for allowing me to ‘play’ off his words with my photographs, many of which I have forgotten I loved. This has been an inspired collaboration and has certainly brought me back to work that I thought was dead.

“‘Interestingly, we share the year of birth, 1949, the borough of Queens, and are sons of blue collar fathers who never finished high school. [Although, if the truth be told, the author’s father was a barber and an illegal immigrant who never went to school.] This may be the root of our connection as the words and images meet one another for the first time.’”