The Desert

“The majority of these poems exist thanks to a convalescence that lasted half a year and that, like the practice of Hesychasm, forced me to become quiet, solitary and silent. In the writing of this book I was very inspired by the audio-visual piece Et la guerre est à peine commencée (And the war has only just begun), from Tiqunn Collective, who I had first heard about thanks to the publisher and philosopher Roberto Abuín. The voice-over in the film recalls the profound but unstable connection between the world’s will to distance, and the creation of community. The first hermits set out alone but eventually found each other in the middle of the desert. As we learn from Deleuze, nomadism is not a refutation of the centre, but the recognition that life moves and we need to be quick to catch it.” —María do Cebreiro