EP 17: Written between February and May of 2004 in Bomarzo, Italy, NANNI CAGNONE’S INDEX VACUUS: POEMS is a cycle of fifty interrelated lyrical poems — which could be described as “a weary exultation of fragments.”  Cagnone writes: “Poetry is an extraneous work, something sleep would teach consciousness. It demands receptive thought and desires learned in response. It does not comprise an act of gathering the world as an encouragement to meaning or a flattery of language but the experience of a faithfulness that would retain the inutterable. Poetry is the action of going beyond what one can think.”

NANNI CAGNONE’s recent books of poetry include Il popolo delle cose (Milan, 1999) and Doveri dell’esilio (Pavia, 2002). He has also recently published a novel, Pacific Time (Milan, 2001), a play, Questo posto va bene per guardare il tramonto (Pavia, 2002), and a book of selected works, L’oro guarda l’argento (2003), published in Verona on the occasion of his receiving the “Lorenzo Montano” prize. He was born in the Italian region of Liguria, in 1939.  INDEX VACUUS is his third book with Edgewise Press.


First edition paperback, October 2004, 112 pp., sewn, bound, and printed in Italy, with a two-color cover, and a black and white photograph of the author on the frontispiece.

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