Aphrodite – contemporary poem by Stefania Lucchetti

February 5, 2025

Photo: Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1485 circa (Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze)

““I am the vessel of wonders and love

Queen of Cups, ruling from above

my hands sculpt dreams from desire’s clay

igniting love’s fire in every heart’s way.”

Excerpt from the poem “Aphrodite” included in the contemporary poetry collection Coffee Stains on My Books, Stefania Lucchetti, 2024

Purchase the book to read the full poem

What if you couldn’t recognize beauty? Would the world be fairer—or emptier?

Lately, I have been reading Ted Chiang’s books. If you don’t know Chiang, he is a US based science fiction writer whose work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and six Locus awards. He has published mostly short stories, particularly the collections Stories of Your Life and Exhalation. His Stories of your life was the inspiration for the screenplay of the 2016 movie “Arrival” starring Jessica Chastain.

He pushes intellectual and scientific boundaries, similarly to the series Black Mirror. He is an exceptional writers and all his stories leave the reader with a spark of thought.

There is one particular story which surprised me and left me thinking and that is “Liking what you see: a documentary”.

In “Liking What You See: A Documentary” Ted Chiang explores the ethical and societal implications of “calliagnosia,” a fictional condition which disables one’s ability to perceive physical beauty. The story is presented through a series of documentary-style interviews, through which it examines how this cognitive adjustment affects individual identity, social dynamics, and cultural values. It raises questions about beauty, bias, and the true nature of perception in a media-driven world. Chiang is able to express different opinions and points of view in the story, all of which have meaning and dignity.

Here I will express one point of view, which is not of course absolute: it is one of the several possible points of view on this topic. I believe beauty is a fundamental aspiration of the human being.

Beauty has always been considered one of the highest ideals to which humanity aspires. In every form of art, beauty represents a kind of striving toward the sublime, an aspirational quality that drives us to seek perfection, harmony, and to transcend daily hardships. It is not merely an aesthetic ideal but also a tangible manifestation of the deepest emotions and aspirations of the human soul.

Oscar Wilde once said, “Beauty is a form of genius—indeed, it is higher than genius, as it needss no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world […] It cannot be questioned, and it has its divine right of sovereignty; […] Sometimes people say that beauty is only superficial: that may be so, but at least it is not as superficial as thought. For me, beauty is the wonder of wonders.”

In other words, beauty needs no justification because it is self-evident, and it is precisely its ability to exist without explanations that makes it a powerful and transformative force.
Denying the importance of beauty or diminishing its value is a form of neurosis, a disconnection from an element of humanity that enriches us emotionally and spiritually.
In a world often focused on functionality, utility, and efficiency, forgetting the centrality of beauty means rejecting an essential part of the human experience. Beauty is not merely superficial; it is a spiritual necessity: it offers solace to the soul, stimulates creativity, and allows us to see the world from a higher, more enlightened perspective. When beauty is denied, we lose touch with a fundamental dimension of what it means to be human.

In the attempt to rationalize or reduce everything to mere tools of utility, we risk compromising what makes life not just bearable, but deeply meaningful.

It is akin to trying to eliminate poetry from everyday life, condemning ourselves to an existence devoid of color, flavor, and wonder.