THIS book is a confessio vitae, an expression of the drama every person experiences when separated from the divine, when pushed between hope and despair, illusion and disappointment, darkness and light. One of my references is Jacopone da Todi, a thirteenth-century  Italian clergyman and poet, a tormented and anxious, harsh and violent writer. The central part of the book is defined by the Improperia, a series of verses sung during the worship of the Cross on Good Friday. My epigrams retrace the themes of the Passion: release from flesh, bleeding, flaying, anointing. I was raised Catholic, and Confessions is about my relation to faith, my struggle, my torment. A wish to be freed through blood and suffering, through beauty and art.

PHOTOGRAPHY has always been my medium, and that is what I’m known for as an artist: my photographs. Although I studied painting and sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum Art School from 1967 through 1969,  I never allowed myself to venture into painting or sculpture. Recently, I found an old book with black and white illustrations of Michelangelo sculptures and, spontaneously and without giving it too much thought, started drawing on its pages with oil pastels. It was not unlike automatic writing and I very much enjoyed doing it. The resulting images are different from the pictures that inspired them, but I hope the spirit of Michelan­gelo is there. I’m happy to see these drawings accompany Gabriele’s poems in this book.