The body is a place of transit, 2008

Prologue by Juan Carlos Romero for the book "The body is a place of transit". Tales by Maximo Simoni; visual artist Rita Simoni, 2008
An old relationship between image and poetry is the experience to which those who are going to approach this book are subjected, where each of the two protagonists, the one that communicates with the word and who does it with the images, has decided to produce its own story about the seven stories published here.

A curious question arises when trying to read these tales: perhaps the artist also read them before or only produced her own graphic story and then ventured to dialogue with the written text.

The answer is notorious and it refers to the rich framework formed between the stories and the images, which tell us about the freedom of each one to put the readers in the situation of not knowing where to start: the eyes will be willing to read or maybe to look. Hard decision.

What takes place is that the images arrive very quickly to the eye and to go for the reading it is necessary to give the words a bit of attention and it is in those moments where the eyes begin a kind of dance, in which you can't avoid going from one place to another, walking through the territory of the open pages, like a landscape full of lines, spots, photos and words, which like blood arteries, fill the book with vital fluids.

Everything composes a rich landscape, almost without solution of continuity, which leads the contemplating reader through a journey where the days of great pleasure followed one after the other as he saw colors being born, that no demiurge in the most fertile of his dreams could imagine where the walls, stairs, animals, windows and flowers highlights a narrative full of nuances of forms, noises, smells, textures, flavors and actions that thus open an endless path.

So the characters, sometimes appear in the story, others are hidden behind the drawing and at the end of each tale they are present in that poetic double speech in which the reader is required to unveil the mystery of their presence.

A unique book, in which the images and the story lead, in a creative symbiosis, the opportunity to carry out an artistic challenge and the result is here, for the pleasure of those who have the privilege of holding it in their hands.

Juan Carlos Romero, 2008