H E N R I M I C H A U X
This situation of not having a very large audience
has something good in it too. I mean that it educates
you in a certain way: not to consider that great audiences
are the most important reward on this earth.
I consider that even if I have three people who read
me. I mean really read me, it is enough. That reminds
me of a conversation I had once upon a time during
the only glimpse I ever had of Henri Michaux. It was
when he had a stop-over in Athens, coming from
Egypt, I think. He came ashore while his ship was in
Piraeus just in order to have a look at the Acropolis.
And he told me on that occasion:" You know, my dear,
a man who has only one reader is not a writer. A man
who has two readers is not a writer either. But a man
who has three readers (and he pronounced "three
readers" as though they were three million), that man
is really a writer.
— G E O R G E S E F E R I S
George Seferis, 1920
from Sweet Theft
a poet's commonplace book
J.D. McClatchy
Counterpoint 2016
