Road Narrows: Poems of Tunisia, 2013
by Richard Milazzo.

With a Romanian translation by Alexandru Oprescu.
First edition paperback:  December 2014.
112 pages, with a black and white photograph of the author, Tunis, Tunisia, June 12, 2013, by Joy L. Glass on the frontispieces, and color photographic illustrations on the cover by the author.
8 x 5.75 in., printed, sewn and bound in Romania.
ISBN:  978-606-674-058-6.
Publsihed by Scrisul Romanesc, Craiova, Romania, 2014.

RETAIL PRICE: $40.00 (includes postage and handling)

Poems written in Tunisia which collapse erotic incident, archeological sites, and history into each other.  While some of the poems were also written during the author’s travels in the French midi, all are infused with an inner as well as an outer light that must also negotiate the darkness of the soul.

“I assigned the book the title, Road Narrows, because I felt that life generally narrows to a point – that is, if we are lucky, if we live long enough to even experience it in that way –, which geometrical figure (the ‘point’) we all know is dimensionless.  It narrows, if not vision-wise then surely time-wise.  Temporality is unforgiving, no matter the forms into which science may twist and turn it, no matter our ‘travels,’ whether literal or figurative, through the world (of experience), no matter all the ads in the airports to the contrary.  Calling the affects the passage of time has on us ‘temporality’ will not mitigate, will not deflect, the encroaching reality.  Distancing ourselves from these realities, which we do so well as Americans, lauding the value and values of youth and the youth-culture, will not change this.  We cannot botox away, we cannot surgically wiggle our way out of, this condition.

“The title Road Narrows actually came to me from the road signs I saw approaching the airport in New York City on my way to Nice.  But I have been aware of the sign for a very long time, especially in the New England states.  (Just as I was aware of the road sign Frost Heaves, which became the title of another book of poems.)  It just didn’t resonate with me metaphysically, and certainly not existentially, until it finally hit me, at first intuitively and then consciously.  And then, coincidentally, in Kerkouane (in Tunisia) my guide explained to me that the medina roads – indeed, all roads – tend to narrow geologically over time, imperceptibly, millimeters at a time over millennia, no matter how robust the stones.  Apart from the general wear and tear, the road pushes upwards toward the center, which trajectory might be interpreted as a form of transcendence (if we are desperate for such redemption), or also as a last gasp.

“Then, in Carthage, where I fell in love with Punic civilization, the title Road Narrows, took on additional meaning, perhaps precisely because there is so little of this civilization that has survived.  Even the brilliant light of Tunisia, which was instrumental in transforming the art of Paul Klee, and the comparably beautiful light of the midi, which was transformative for the work of the great French artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, should not blind us to the comparable darker realities invariably accompanying any great effulgence.

“My thanks again to Carmen Firan for getting behind this publication, which is, in fact, my third book published with Scrisul Românesc.  Eastern Shadows was published in 2010, which contained the poems written in Romania, and Where Angels Arch Their Backs and Dogs Pass Through in 2012, containing the poems I wrote during my first trip to India.  I must also thank Florea Firan, the editor and publisher of Scrisul Românesc, for his persistence, understanding and tolerance.  It is more than a little strange to publish two books – one written in India, the other in Tunisia – in Romania, and to have written in addition some sixteen other books of poetry, published mostly in Italy, and in Japan, Serbia, and Belgium, but to have published none in the United States.  Perhaps this is not so strange, since the only thing, or two things, I have loved about the U.S. is the endless influx of immigrants who make this country a little less Protestant, white, and provincial, and the vast, uncontainable expanse, the feral diversity, of its geography.  Publication in Romania and elsewhere, and given the books of poems I have written (some published, many still unpublished) in Southeast Asia, Russia, North Africa, China, Central America, Mexico, South America, Eastern and Western Europe, has turned me into a kind of global emigrant, for which I am most grateful.”