Serious reading is often driven by chance encounters. I encountered the name Antonione Porchia three times on three occasions from three different writers. The first was while reading an interview with the great Argentine poet Roberto Juarroz ( Famous for his “Vertical poetry” , which I had reviewed here) . He says, ‘I keep a few admirations (Porchia, for Example, Rainer Maria Rilke and Vicente Huidobro)' . The second one was from an interview with WS Merwin where he voices his immense satisfaction in discovering and translating Antonio Porchia. The third one, which literally made the sale, was from Jorge Luis Borges, the only writer with whom I would have loved to have a photograph. So let me quote what Borges says about this fellow Argentine:
“Maxims run the risk of seeming like mere verbal equations: we are tempted to see in them the work of chance or a combinatorial art. But this is not the case for Novalis, La Rochefoucauld or Antonio Porchia. In each maxim, the reader feels the immediate presence of a man and his destiny. We never met in person. I first heard his name from the lips of Xul Solar, the visionary painter. It isn’t hard for me to imagine that they were great friends: neither of them could contradict me at present. But what I can say with certainty is that, through his “Voices”, Antonio Porchia is today an intimate friend of mine, even if he doesn't know it.
"... In Porchia's aphorisms, the reader feels the immediate presence of man and his destiny. The aphorisms included in "Voices" lead much further than their written text. They are not an end but a beginning. They don't strive to create an impression. One can assume that the writer wrote them for himself, without knowing that that he was creating for others the image of a lonely man, who sees things with clarity and is conscious of the unique mystery of every moment."
Now a bit about this writer of poetic aphorisms. Porchia arrived in Argentina from Italy in 1902 and remained a humble immigrant all his life, working at the docks, weaving baskets and making prints. Porchia wrote and rewrote one book throughout his life and that is Voices (That speaks about quality than quantity).
I am overwhelmed by the sheer poetic power and simmering wisdom contained in this little tome. There are many great books that slowly fall into that black hole called oblivion and so let me salute the poet WS Merwin for doing yeoman service of translating Voices for the English readers.
Voices falls in the borderline between Prose and Poetry enshrining a vision that illuminates the world. Reading this slim volume of 128 pages (count half of that for English readers as it is bilingual) . It appears to me that Porsche contracted his solitude, sufferings, sentiments and sapience into this mini magnum opus. Let me discuss some of my favourites here.
“I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received”
What a revelatory thought! It instantly invites us to think about every kind of giving-intellectual, emotional or material. Whatever received is received in a way that suits the needs of the recipient. Perhaps at a much deeper level it speaks about the misunderstandings in love, communication and relationships.
“There are sufferings that have lost their memory and do not remember why they are suffering”
This one is really introspective. Ask a mother in Palestine, Syria or Ukraine who is frozenly inured to sufferings and you know the spiritual depth of it. And indeed many of the aphorisms read like fragments of a spiritual book, like that Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations or works of St. Thomas.
"Following straight lines shortens distances, and also life"
This I thought is an excellent critique of the narrowness of linear thinking and vision .
Here are some more for your thoughts and discussions:
"Sometimes, at night, I turn on a light so as not to see."
“A full heart has room for everything and an empty heart has room for nothing.”
“My father, when he went, made my childhood a gift of a half a century.”
“You do not see the river of tears because it lacks one tear of your own”
“Nothing that is complete breathes"
“The mystery brings peace to my eyes, not blindness.”
“When your suffering is a little greater than my suffering I feel that I am a little cruel.”
“A new pain enters and the old pains of the household receive it with their silence, not with their death.”
“If those who owe us nothing gave us nothing, how poor we would be”
“My neighbour’s poverty make me feel poor; my own doesn't.”
“A little candor never leaves me, it is what protects me.”
“I saw a dead man. And I was little, little, little . . . My God, what a great thing a dead man is!”
“He who holds me by a thread is not strong; the thread is strong.”
“My poverty is not complete; it lacks me.”
“Everything is a little bit of darkness, even the light.”
“He who does not fill his world with phantoms remains alone.”
“One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.”
Each of the above aphorisms feeds on silence and possesses a meditative quality. Unlike the “Maxims” of La Rochefoucauld , Proche’s aphorisms are free of acidity, cynicism and social foibles. His passionate thoughts almost stretch to the eternal and expose us to the infinite. These aphorisms are certainly bound to churn our conscience. His Zen-like wisdom, spiritual leapings like those of Blake and concerns like those of modern writers like Kafka or Camus seem to have originated in the soil of his wisdom and unadulterated thinking. It appears that his suffering, pain and solitude acted as a crucible to distill these noble thoughts of universal worth.
It is astonishing that this man who gardened on a small plot of his experience succeeded in harvesting extraordinary fruits from it for humanity to feed on for centuries. His Voices will continue to echo forever in any reader. While this book can be read in two hours, I plan to keep reading it for a lifetime.