The House Is Past brings together writing from a period spanning 1978-1998. It is the compilation of a portion of a life spent in a language that is borrowed and adapted, the document of an instance of cultural transition and transformation. The poetic trajectory is not simply linear and transformative, because Pasquale Verdicchio engages a variety of forms and manipulates language towards the integration of many cultural sources. The tide of the collection, reminiscent of Adorno, is a reflection on this possibility of working in tandem between languages and cultures, between histories and existences. The House is Past refers to the house as both a place of historical reference and historical loss. The past is a point of departure and reference, and the house a flexible construct, the materials of which are assembled according to the poet's cultural needs.