Antonio Porchia (November 13, 1885 – November 9, 1968) was an

Argentinian Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or ( feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

. Porchia was born in

Conflenti Conflenti ( Calabrian: ) is a and town in the province of Catanzaro in the Calabria region of southern Italy. It is located at the foot of the Reventino Reventino is a massif in the southern Apennines, in Calabria, southern Italy. It has a ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, but, after the death of his father in 1900, moved to

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. Porchia wrote a Spanish book entitled ''Voces'' ("Voices"), a book of

aphorism An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tra ...

s. It has since been translated into Italian and into English (by

W.S. Merwin William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thema ...

Copper Canyon Press Copper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, founded in 1972 specializing exclusively in the publication of poetry. It is located in Port Townsend, Washington. Copper Canyon Press publishes new collections of poetry by both popu ...

, 2003), French, and German. A very influential, yet extremely succinct writer, Porchia has been a cult author for a number of renowned figures of contemporary literature and thought such as

André Breton André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...

Don Paterson Donald Paterson (born 1963) is a Scottish poet, writer and musician. Background Don Paterson was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1963. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1990 and his poem "A Private Bottling" won the Arvon Foundation International ...

, Roberto Juarroz and

Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...

, amongst others. Some critics have paralleled his work to Japanese

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or se ...

and found many similarities with a number of

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

schools of thought.

Works

* ''Voces'' (1943), English translation by W. S. Merwin: ''Voices'',

, 2003,

References

External links

Antonio Porchia's ''Voces'' Website
An essay of Prof. Vincenzo Villella 1880s births 1968 deaths Aphorists Italian male poets 20th-century Argentine poets 20th-century Italian male writers Argentine male poets Italian emigrants to Argentina Naturalized citizens of Argentina 20th-century Italian poets {{argentina-poet-stub