I met him at the TVE headquarters in Pamplona, almost thirty years ago. I was responsible for the first (and last) session in Basque that was held in that house. Once a week I invited the poet to the program: Francisco Javier Irazoki. He was a small, bearded, hypocritical, outdated guy. The young journalist, poorly versed on television and poetry, found him a mysterious, silent, friendly and sensitive man.

If I am not mistaken, he offered one of those bilingual copies of the collection of poems edited by the UPV/EHU, translating the Basque into Spanish poems. Despite his lack of experience, the presenter already had a fundamental lesson in journalism: for communication to work, interlocutors using the same code are needed. Obviously, if he had made a fundamental mistake, it would hardly have been a memorable conversation.

The philosopher Nuccio Ordine claims in his interesting book L'utilità dell'inutile knowledge that does not give us an immediate benefit, among them: “Inside poetry there is a kind of perfume, or a light, that delights us all. But to realize and enjoy it, you need to do a training job.” You just have to look at the number of copies of poetry books to realize: most of us haven't.

The point is that shortly afterwards the poet left Euskal Herria and left for Paris. He told us in a book of prose poems that the paradises of our mountain hide great hells. Since then he has lived in the French capital dedicated to literature and music, occasionally publishing curious books that deserve the applause of criticism.

The last one is entitled One Hundred mirrors, written with so many other words. Since I recognised the shortcomings in the list of targets for the new year, I accept it: Reading the halagos of Savater, Aranburu and others, I struggled to buy the book.

I didn't repent. In the texts that the lesakarra considers as “soneto written in prose” there are reflections on different themes: lessons, travel, literature, music, friends… All written in the beautiful Castilian that takes us comfortably through the lines. Irazoki's are slowly carved texts from a patient craftsman: take them out of here and there to give the message as clear and elegant as possible.

I have enjoyed the mirrors of the lesakarra, as shown by the number of underlines I have left in the copy. Although I was planning to end some of them, it is not possible. Just as their texts are limited to 190 words, the signatory of these lines cannot exceed the line of 330.