And Yet It Moves

In And Yet It Moves, the poet is an archeologist of mourning rediscovering thatassaults on science and reason are not new phenomenon. Gallagher followsPetrarch who spawns a new lyric in part inspired by lost texts, and who motivates’book hunters’ of the Renaissance to search for the buried as well. The worldchanged when Poggio Bracciolini discovered Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things ina Benedictine library. Lucretius’ poem is a meditation of the universe as infinitenumbers of atoms wandering randomly through space with no master planwhatsoever. The book birthed humanist philosophy, masterworks such as theBirth of Venus, and inspirations for Galileo Galilei. When Galileo’s patrons thepowerful Medici rose to the Papacy, they chose their power over science andreason-sentencing and silencing Galileo for life for proving that the earthrevolved around the sun. Digging with his pen, Gallagher brings these storiesback in ’talking sonnets’ as if ditching the Latin for the more colloquial Italian ofthe people that came into form during the era. Upon his sentencing, Galileo’s issaid to have uttered ’Eppur si muove,’ knowing that the truth will eventuallyprevail.