Antonio Porchia; Translator W.S. Merwin

Antonio Porchia was an Italian poet. He was born in Conflenti (Italy) but, after the death of his father in 1900, moved to Argentina. He wrote a Spanish book entitled Voces ("Voices"), a book of aphorisms. It has since been translated into English (by W.S. Merwin), French, and German. A very influential, yet extremely succinct writer, he has been a cult author for a number of renowned figures of contemporary literature and thought such as André Breton, Jorge Luis Borges, Roberto Juarroz and Henry Miller, amongst others. Some critics have paralleled his work to Japanese Haiku and found many similarities with a number of Zen schools of thought.