Synthesis - A Book of Nothingness (2004-08)

 piero scaruffi
Essays, Photographs, Poems (Omniware, 2009)
ISBN: 978-0-9765531-7-5
You can purchase the black and white edition of this book from AMAZON.COM.

You can purchase the limited-edition color version of this book directly from the author ($25, same price as the Amazon black and white version).

Post-Synthesis essays are here

  1. Triptych (for the Beginning of Time) - Odes (2004-07)
  2. Osmosis - Cantos (2006)
  3. Mottos of the Afterlife - Epigrams (1997-2008)
  4. The Distance - Romance (1996)
  5. Synesthesia - Haikus (2006-09)
  6. Symbiosis - Ghazals (1998-2002)
  7. Poems For Angels (1995-6)
  8. Backwards (1983-1989)
Read the accompanying essays Look at the accompanying photos
Written in California, Arizona, Kiev, Istanbul, Roma, London, Dubai, Singapore, Angkor, Jogyakarta, Shanghai

"Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history since its statements are of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars". (Aristoteles)

The poems of "Synthesis" present the author's reinterpretation of ancient poetic forms (odes, cantos, epigrams, haikus, ghazals and a romance) and of ancient themes from a plethora of cultures and ages. Or viceversa: ancient forms and themes from all over the world revisiting the author's poetry.
From the Introduction: Unfortunately, we cannot print multi-dimensional books.

Ideally, this book would be read as three parallel threads: a series of essays, a collection of poems and a gallery of photographs. Both the essays and the photos have been squeezed on the even-numbered pages. The poems are on the odd-numbered pages.

The book was also supposed to include music, but obtaining the rights to reproduce the music was too expensive and time-consuming.

Yes, the Laurel leaf is part of the book: the book is meant to have its own "scent".

The subject of this book will be unfamiliar to most readers. I have tried to describe the rise and fall of the image we construct of ourselves and, by extension, of the environment that shapes us. One of my aims was to explain as clearly as possible the design and operation of the inner and outer worlds. My interest in the subject began about five years ago, when i first realized that all writers have been writing about the same subject, which is not the subject of this book. Another goal has been to provide a concise, coherent narrative history of Love, Time and Death. A final aim was to encourage further scholarly research on the related topics of Life and Consciousness: there is still much that we do not know.

piero scaruffi, 2009