The Extraordinary Story of Antonio Porchia

In 1949 in Paris, the French Book Club considered Porchia among the writers to nominate for its international prize reserved for foreign authors. Porchia was therefore invited to France but declined, replying with one of his ineffable phrases, “Distances mean nothing. Everything is here.” Even though Voci was reissued in 1956, 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1970, it was only at the end of his life that the ignored prophet of his land was rediscovered in Argentina. The resonance of the French edition was powerful enough to generate the interest of the magazine SUR in Porchia’s Voci, and to publish a selection from it. Porchia asked the editor Vittoria Ocampo to send any proceeds from the work to some needy poet. Even the other periodicals, La Nacion among them, finally discovered Porchia, and published some of his “voices” and various reviews. At the same time he was called to the municipal radio station to recite his “voices” personally. Even a recording was made (by Antonio Porchia himself).

The poet and writer Leon Benaros underscores this decisive turn in the appreciation of Porchia’s work, attributing it to Roger Caillois’ French translation. From then on many emerging poets such as Aldo Pellegrini, Oliveiro Girondo, Enrique Molina, Olga Orozco, Roberto Juarroz, Antonio Requeni, Alejandra Pizarnik, Raul Gustavo Aguirre. Margarita Duran, and Edgar Bayley joined the older poets and writers such as Alejandro Tomatis, Lysandro Galtier and Leon Benatos who used to frequent the home of Antonio Porchia. Timid and reserved, Porchia never married. His home housed a literary circle with a coming-and-going of artists and writers. Everyone has emphasized the great humility with which Porchia listened to his interlocutors. His presence instilled among others an immediate and profound involvement with himself, so much that some confessed that after talking with him a sort of catharsis—a true transformation—uplifted them. One of Porchia’s “voices” reads: “Live and live together. Live and make others live.” One of these poets, Roberto Juarroz, a great friend pf Porchia’s in his last years, and a world-class literary critic, to whom we owe what are perhaps the most beautiful pages on Porchia’s work, said in a testimonial published in 1982, “To visit him was a pilgrimage towards inner strength, towards active thought, towards true intelligence, a pilgrimage towards the deep. It was a privilege to live his wisdom for a little while.” (La fidelidad al relampago, conversaciones con Roberto Jaurroz, Universidad de Mexico, vol. xxxviii, n. 16)

Repercussions continued from the renewed fascination with Voci. Thus Fernando Versehen in Belgium in 1962 included Porchia in the anthology “Living Poetry in Argentina.” In January 1964 in Paris a selection from Voci appeared in “Nuova Rivista Francese.” In 1966 the editor of Hachette published in South America a selection in many editions (with the addition of Voci Nuove—that is, New Voices—beginning in 1974), and they were sold out immediately. In 1967, Federico Weineger translated one issue into German (Humboldt magazine, n.32, Monaco). In 1968 in the United States the poet W.S. Merwin brought out some English translations in Bazaar magazine, and in the following year published, along with his preface, a selection of 250 “voices” in a simultaneous edition published in Chicago and Toronto. (Voices, Big Table Publishing Company, Chicago, 1969).

Porchia, who never received tributes, prizes or formal gestures of recognition in the literary world, wasn’t able to enjoy the fame that was being created around his work. While carrying a branch in his garden, he fell and developed a cerebral hematoma. They operated but he wasn’t able to recover entirely. He died on a Saturday evening, November 9, 1968, just before his 83rd birthday. It was raining furiously on the day of his burial. In the farewell he was eulogized by the poet Lysandro Galtier in behalf of SADE (Argentine Society of Writers) and Jose Pugliese in behalf of the Association of Arts and Letters Impulso.