TWO MEETINGS WITH JORGE LUIS BORGES

The fact of living in the same city as a writer we admire does not mean a huge advantage in relation to the possibility of meeting him beyond what his pages offer.

In the event, Icould only see him a couple of times, both very briefly. The first occasion,was  in 1975, when he unexpectedly showed up at an art gallery I attended. He was extremely polite and even shy in his social behaviour. I do not remember who introduced us but he told me something about his latest book La rosa profunda (The Deep Rose), just published. He was very reticent in talking about himself or his work unless directly asked. By that time. I had not read him thoroughly nor was I particularly interested in his poetical or narrative work. Six years later I had devoured his complete works and had the chance of meeting him again at the Sociedad Argentina de Escritores (Argentinian Society of Writers).

As I had published my first book — in which Dylan Thomas had left a deep trace — I wanted to give Borges a copy with an inscription. I remember he took my book very politely. Listening to the reading of my inscription  —Borges had been blind since 1955 — he told me he did not deserve those words of sincere admiration; nobody did. When I told him I also admired Dylan Thomas and that the Welsh poet had had a powerful influence on my first book, he said that if I liked Dylan Thomas so much, I would also like Walt Whitman, "an author of other epiphanies", as he then defined it. I answered that I had read Whitman — with that certainty only allowed by the age of 20 and a first book published — and was not too enthusiastic about him.

Borges retorted that something similar had happened to Ezra Pound, who only came to appreciate Whitman's great work at an older age and that, if Pound had had that perception, it was probable the same would be happening to me: that I might be needing some more time to enter Whitman's poetics.

 I never saw Borges again but I kept on reading and re-reading his poems and narrations. Later these became a major influence in my writing. By then I already believed that a new author should try to premeditatively seek the influence of other writers, to counterbalance the influence received from one author with the reading of another.  LUIS BENITEZ