“In this imaginative re-creation of the life and times of Amadeo Modigliani, Militano employs a risky mix of poetry and prose to convey different aspects of the places and people which provided the raw materials for the artist’s work as painter and sculptor. Though they differ considerably, the two genres manage to resonate with each other. The poems often have the clarity of good prose and the prose has sudden stretches of surprising lyrical complexity. What I find most impressive is the immediacy of the descriptive passages, the changing light in the trees, in the skies, the streets, rooms, studios and outdoor cafes of Paris, the detailed exploration of Livorno — the houses and parks of the artist’s birthplace. These vivid settings establish a strong sense of the artist’s everyday world, and are complemented by discursive interpretations that bring his paintings into focus on the page.”

“The mystery of how erotic and spiritual and artistic desire can be one — Modigliani immersed his consciousness in it; Carmelo Militano does the same in this intensely personal response to the life of the great visual artist, this lyrical investigation of a deep, all-consuming creative necessity. And as Modigliani could not paint the eyes of his beloved, knowing those eyes looked out from the ineffable, so Militano knows he cannot ever fully “catch” desire; still, it is Militano’s imaginative occupation to try — and the result is a highly affecting, extended magical act in words, a heightened acknowledgment of concentrated human yearning.”