In the Realm of Motes

A stunning work of prose poetry from award-winning Swiss poet Baptiste Gaillard, In the Realm of Motes is a key ecopoetic text that celebrates the infinitesimal and the ephemeral in their entropic yet orchestral movements of aggregration, fragmentation, and mutation. Both Gaillard’ s language and what these prose poems point to break apart, absorb, and reconstitute a unique space that is both easily comprehended and entirely strange. At one moment we’ re reading about a lake or a forest and the next our deepest meditations and alarms. These short prose poems must be read to understand the lower layer connecting us and our surroundings.

Baptiste Gaillard has exhibited installations and objects in galleries and art spaces in Switzerland and Europe. Language has gradually become the subject of his work, and he has since regularly published his texts in magazines, as well as six books, including Un domaine des corpuscules (Hippocampe é ditions, Swiss Literature Prize in 2018), Ombres blanches sur fond presque blanc (2020), and Un test de fragilité (2024). His work explores the thresholds of the sensible and tells of materials and transient states, like the condensation on a window that disappears as soon as it is imprinted. Aditi Machado is a poet, translator, and essayist. Her books include a translation of Farid Tali’ s novel Prosopopoeia (Action, 2016) and the poetry collections from Nightboat: Material Witness (2024), Emporium (2020; James Laughlin Award), and Some Beheadings (2017; The Believer Poetry Award). She is also a contributor Katrine Ø gaard Jensen and Ursula Andkjæ r’ s mistranslation project Ancient Algorithms forthcoming from Sarabande Books. She lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio.