My approximation to the minimalist conception comes from the personal connection I have made throughout my life with the essential and brevity. It has been nourished by my readings and approach to expressions of philosophy and art.
Having known the aphorism, through ancient Greek philosophers, such as Heraclitus – “You cannot step into the same river twice” – was one of the first motivations to approach the essentiality of thinking and saying. From there to Lao-Tse – “He who speaks the most, exhausts himself the soonest” – and to the great cultivators of the aphorism.
My second motivation, linked to the previous one, is the tradition of Japanese poetry, of Zen origin, condensed in the haiku, with its three verses of five, seven and five syllables consecutively. Matsuo Bashō has lent us his light: “A slight moment / lingers over the flowers / the moonlight.” Also, his painting made of those simple strokes and the emptiness of his surroundings, which has influenced many Western painters.
And finally, my appreciation and taste for certain contemporary musicians who can be called minimalists. For their basic, repetitive melodic and rhythmic structures, with an acute mental and spiritual resonance, such as Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass and Ludovico Einaudi, whom I often listen to. Also nourished by Eastern music, and by Western atonal music of the 20th century.
All this has contributed to my poetic and fictional writing, inclined to brevity and the essential, as I can show below in poems from my books:
An abyss emerges
in the fall of a leaf
Green and fragile body
of emptiness
Blink of eternity
The mirror hides its illusion
The word opens a mirror
We are a mirror through the word
References of my books:
Malavé, José (1991). Breviario de sombras. Venezuela: CALJARS.
Malavé, José (2004). Oculta y próxima. Venezuela: Universidad de Oriente.
The photos are my own, and are intended to illustrate, in a certain way, the spirit of my text.
Thank you for your kind attention. I hope that my writing can be compatible with the concept of the community. Greetings.
