Fossil Sky is a creation of remarkable originality and beauty. An epic poem in the form of a lyrical map, the text arcs and twists through space without beginning or end. Composed on a single 54-square-inch sheet, it liberates poetry from the conventions of page and book, and thus expands the mental space in which a poem can operate. Written by a renowned translator of ancient Chinese potry and philosophy, during a period of time he spent in southern France, Fossil Sky distills a year of walks taken near the poet’s home, tracing the paths a mind takes through landscape, history and ideation. And it does this in such a way that it opens us to the primal space of consciousness itself.

The poem’s formal daring is combined with an inviting and direct personal voice, an inner voice adrift––broken up by landscape, space, time, and silence. This combination makes Fossil Sky a liberating joy to read: spreading it out on a large table or floor and then turning it, walking around it, crawling over it, a reader wanders mind and landscape, space and time, silence and emptiness. Avant-garde epic poem, lyrical map, work of conceptual art––Fossil Sky is an altogether new experience.