“In the final stanza of his remarkable poem ‘Sunday Morning’ (1923), Wallace Stevens refers to Jerusalem (and more specifically the tomb of Christ) as, possibly, ‘the porch of spirits lingering’. It is such a strange formula that it has endured: the ‘porch of spirits’, the place where they ‘linger’ — this is any portal or threshold linking (and also separating) human beings from whatever gods or angels there might be. A lovely notion. But why did Stevens choose that homely word, and that most quotidian of sites: the porch? A ‘portico’ (whence the word derives) is something grand. But a ‘porch’? It is the postage-stamp façade of a temple (or is it a tomb?) pasted in miniature upon our domestic architecture. In a secular age, as Stevens understood so well, this is where our spirits, whatever they may be, are left to linger. Federica Soletta sits with them awhile in the affecting photo-essay that follows. ...”
