|
|
Article: Voices.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- The Antioch Review
- Article date:
- September 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Antioch Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Voices by Antonio Porchia, tr. W. S. Merwin. Copper Canyon, 129 pp., $14.00. This fascinating collection of poetic aphorisms is so stylistically pure, psychologically lucid, and philosophically far-reaching that I am tempted to list quotations, instead of commenting on them. Try this perception: "Near me nothing but distances." Or this one: "You have nothing and you want to give me a world. I owe you a world."
The author of these remarks was Antonio Porchia (1886-1968), an Italian who immigrated to Argentina in his twenties and eventually wrote in Spanish. Discovered (for non-Argentineans) by the ever-curious French writer Roger Caillois (who published a French ...