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Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition
The most indispensable poems of Brazil's greatest poet
Brazil, according to no less an observer than Elizabeth Bishop, is a place where poets hold a place of honor. "Among men, the name of ‘poet' is sometimes used as a compliment or term of affection, even if the person referred to is . . . not a poet at all. One of the most famous twentieth-century poets, Manuel Bandeira, was presented with a permanent parking space in front of his apartment house in Rio de Janeiro, with an enamelled sign POETA―although he never owned a car and didn't know how to drive." In a culture like this, it is difficult to underestimate the importance of the nation's greatest poet, Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
Drummond, the most emblematic Brazilian poet, was a master of transforming the ordinary world, through language, into the sublime. His poems―musical protests, twisted hymns, dissonant celebrations of imperfection―are transcriptions of life itself recorded by a magnanimous outcast. As he put it in his "Seven-Sided Poem": "When I was born, one of those twisted / angels who live in the shadows / ‘Carlos, get ready to be a misfit in life!' . . . World so wide, world so large, / my heart's even larger."
Multitudinous Heart , the most generous selection of Drummond's poems available in English, gathers work from the various phases of this restless, brilliant modernist. Richard Zenith's selection and translation brings us a more vivid and surprising poet than we knew.
Brazil, according to no less an observer than Elizabeth Bishop, is a place where poets hold a place of honor. "Among men, the name of ‘poet' is sometimes used as a compliment or term of affection, even if the person referred to is . . . not a poet at all. One of the most famous twentieth-century poets, Manuel Bandeira, was presented with a permanent parking space in front of his apartment house in Rio de Janeiro, with an enamelled sign POETA―although he never owned a car and didn't know how to drive." In a culture like this, it is difficult to underestimate the importance of the nation's greatest poet, Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
Drummond, the most emblematic Brazilian poet, was a master of transforming the ordinary world, through language, into the sublime. His poems―musical protests, twisted hymns, dissonant celebrations of imperfection―are transcriptions of life itself recorded by a magnanimous outcast. As he put it in his "Seven-Sided Poem": "When I was born, one of those twisted / angels who live in the shadows / ‘Carlos, get ready to be a misfit in life!' . . . World so wide, world so large, / my heart's even larger."
Multitudinous Heart , the most generous selection of Drummond's poems available in English, gathers work from the various phases of this restless, brilliant modernist. Richard Zenith's selection and translation brings us a more vivid and surprising poet than we knew.
432 pages, Paperback
First published June 23, 2015
18 people are currently reading
235 people want to read
About the author
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
246 books478 followersCarlos Drummond de Andrade foi um poeta, contista e cronista brasileiro. Formou-se em Farmácia, em 1925; no mesmo ano, fundava, com Emílio Moura e outros escritores mineiros, o periódico modernista "A Revista". Em 1934 mudou-se para o Rio de Janeiro, onde assumiu o cargo de chefe de gabinete de Gustavo Capanema, Ministro da Educação e Saúde, que ocuparia até 1945. Durante esse período, colaborou, como jornalista literário, para vários periódicos, principalmente o Correio da Manhã. Nos anos de 1950, passaria a dedicar-se cada vez mais integralmente à produção literária, publicando poesia, contos, crônicas, literatura infantil e traduções. Entre suas principais obras poéticas estão os livros Alguma Poesia (1930), Sentimento do Mundo (1940), A Rosa do Povo (1945), Claro Enigma (1951), Poemas (1959), Lição de Coisas (1962), Boitempo (1968), Corpo (1984), além dos póstumos Poesia Errante (1988), Poesia e Prosa (1992) e Farewell (1996). Drummond produziu uma das obras mais significativas da poesia brasileira do século XX. Forte criador de imagens, sua obra tematiza a vida e os acontecimentos do mundo a partir dos problemas pessoais, em versos que ora focalizam o indivíduo, a terra natal, a família e os amigos, ora os embates sociais, o questionamento da existência, e a própria poesia.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 30, 2016
This is for Jean-Paul and Lisa who made me remember poetry…
It amazes me that as we move on with our lives we tend to forget those things that used to give us so much pleasure. I know nothing stays the same, but if there is a way that we wouldn’t forget those precious moments, I would do anything to correct my life. Poetry was once of the things that enthralled me, I used to be able to plunder away minutes or sometimes hours away from my children to spend alone dreaming within my poems.
So, here I am whole again with my remembrances, hoping there if is nothing else I forgot along the way and I am yet unaware, amazed at all beautiful jewels that fortunately are still there in my heart.
I will begin to recollect it all through one of the greatest Brazilian poet, Carlos Drummond de Andrade. So, I present to you, Drummond. His poems stress the importance of words, despite the fact that in his instructions to would-be poets (see below), he may seem to say otherwise. But words, as we know, are not just sounds or mere objects. They stand for things and sentiments. What else can I tell you about him?, but that he was from the landlocked state of Minas Gerais, and all his memories are there with him, always present in his poems.
Please find below two of his poems, Multitudinous Heart and In Search of Poetry. I hope you enjoy them.
Multitudinous Heart
It happened in Rio,
I was walking on the Avenida close to midnight.
Breasts were bouncing amid lights flashing countless stars.
The promise of the sea
and the jungle of streetcars
tempered by the heat
that wafted in the wind
and the wind came from Minas Gerais.
My paralytic dreams the ennui of living
(life for me is the wish to die)
reduced me to a human barrel-organ remotely
in the shopping arcade of the Hotel Avenida sultry sultry
and since I knew no one, just the soft wind from Minas,
and didn’t feel like drinking, I said: Let’s end this.
But an excitement throbbed in the city its long buildings
cars with tops down zooming toward the sea
the sensuously loving heat
a thousand gifts of life for indifferent people,
and my heart beat violently, my useless eyes cried.
The sea was beating in my chest, no longer against the wharf.
The street ended, where did the trees go? the city is me
the city is me
I am the city
my love.
In Search of Poetry
Don’t write poems about what happened.
Birth and death don’t exist in poetry.
Life, next to it, is a static sun
giving off no warmth or light.
Affinities, birthdays, and personal incidents don’t count.
Don’t write poetry with the body,
the noble, complete, and comfortable body, inimical to lyrical effusions.
Your drop of bile, your joyful grin, your frown of pain in the dark
are irrelevant.
Don’t tell your feelings,
which exploit ambiguity and takes the long way around.
What you think and feel is not yet poetry.
Don’t sing about your city, leave it in peace.
Poetry’s song is not the clacking of machines or the secrets of houses.
It’s not music heard in passing, not the rumble of ocean on streets near the breaking foam.
It’s song is not nature
or humans in society.
Rain and night, fatigue and hope, mean nothing to it.
Poetry (don’t extract poetry from things)
elides subject and object.
Don’t dramatize, don’t involke,
don’t inquire. Don’t waste time lying.
Don’t get cross.
Your ivory yacht, your diamond shoes,
your mazurkas and superstitions, your family skeletons
all vanish in the curve of time, they’re worthless.
Don’t reconstruct
your gloomy, long-buried childhood.
Don’t shift back and forth between
the mirror and your fading memory.
What faded wasn’t poetry.
What shattered wasn’t crystal.
Soundlessly enter the kingdom of words.
The poems are there, waiting to be written.
Though paralyzed, they don’t despair,
their virgin surfaces are cool and calm.
Look at them: tongue-tied, alone, in the dictionary state.
Spend time with your poems before you write them.
Be patient, if they’re obscure. Calm, if they provoke you.
Wait for each one to take shape and reach perfection
with its power of languages
and its power of silence.
Don’t force the poem to break out of limbo.
Don’t pick up the poem that fell to the ground.
Don’t fawn on the poem. Accept it
as it will accept its definitive, concentrated form
in space.
Move closer and consider the words.
Each one
hides a thousand faces under its poker face
and asks you, without caring how poor or formidable
your answer might be:
Did you bring the key?
Attention:
destitute of melody and concept,
words have taken refuge in the night.
Still damp and heavy with sleep,
they roll in a rough river and transform into disdain.
It amazes me that as we move on with our lives we tend to forget those things that used to give us so much pleasure. I know nothing stays the same, but if there is a way that we wouldn’t forget those precious moments, I would do anything to correct my life. Poetry was once of the things that enthralled me, I used to be able to plunder away minutes or sometimes hours away from my children to spend alone dreaming within my poems.
So, here I am whole again with my remembrances, hoping there if is nothing else I forgot along the way and I am yet unaware, amazed at all beautiful jewels that fortunately are still there in my heart.
I will begin to recollect it all through one of the greatest Brazilian poet, Carlos Drummond de Andrade. So, I present to you, Drummond. His poems stress the importance of words, despite the fact that in his instructions to would-be poets (see below), he may seem to say otherwise. But words, as we know, are not just sounds or mere objects. They stand for things and sentiments. What else can I tell you about him?, but that he was from the landlocked state of Minas Gerais, and all his memories are there with him, always present in his poems.
Please find below two of his poems, Multitudinous Heart and In Search of Poetry. I hope you enjoy them.
Multitudinous Heart
It happened in Rio,
I was walking on the Avenida close to midnight.
Breasts were bouncing amid lights flashing countless stars.
The promise of the sea
and the jungle of streetcars
tempered by the heat
that wafted in the wind
and the wind came from Minas Gerais.
My paralytic dreams the ennui of living
(life for me is the wish to die)
reduced me to a human barrel-organ remotely
in the shopping arcade of the Hotel Avenida sultry sultry
and since I knew no one, just the soft wind from Minas,
and didn’t feel like drinking, I said: Let’s end this.
But an excitement throbbed in the city its long buildings
cars with tops down zooming toward the sea
the sensuously loving heat
a thousand gifts of life for indifferent people,
and my heart beat violently, my useless eyes cried.
The sea was beating in my chest, no longer against the wharf.
The street ended, where did the trees go? the city is me
the city is me
I am the city
my love.
In Search of Poetry
Don’t write poems about what happened.
Birth and death don’t exist in poetry.
Life, next to it, is a static sun
giving off no warmth or light.
Affinities, birthdays, and personal incidents don’t count.
Don’t write poetry with the body,
the noble, complete, and comfortable body, inimical to lyrical effusions.
Your drop of bile, your joyful grin, your frown of pain in the dark
are irrelevant.
Don’t tell your feelings,
which exploit ambiguity and takes the long way around.
What you think and feel is not yet poetry.
Don’t sing about your city, leave it in peace.
Poetry’s song is not the clacking of machines or the secrets of houses.
It’s not music heard in passing, not the rumble of ocean on streets near the breaking foam.
It’s song is not nature
or humans in society.
Rain and night, fatigue and hope, mean nothing to it.
Poetry (don’t extract poetry from things)
elides subject and object.
Don’t dramatize, don’t involke,
don’t inquire. Don’t waste time lying.
Don’t get cross.
Your ivory yacht, your diamond shoes,
your mazurkas and superstitions, your family skeletons
all vanish in the curve of time, they’re worthless.
Don’t reconstruct
your gloomy, long-buried childhood.
Don’t shift back and forth between
the mirror and your fading memory.
What faded wasn’t poetry.
What shattered wasn’t crystal.
Soundlessly enter the kingdom of words.
The poems are there, waiting to be written.
Though paralyzed, they don’t despair,
their virgin surfaces are cool and calm.
Look at them: tongue-tied, alone, in the dictionary state.
Spend time with your poems before you write them.
Be patient, if they’re obscure. Calm, if they provoke you.
Wait for each one to take shape and reach perfection
with its power of languages
and its power of silence.
Don’t force the poem to break out of limbo.
Don’t pick up the poem that fell to the ground.
Don’t fawn on the poem. Accept it
as it will accept its definitive, concentrated form
in space.
Move closer and consider the words.
Each one
hides a thousand faces under its poker face
and asks you, without caring how poor or formidable
your answer might be:
Did you bring the key?
Attention:
destitute of melody and concept,
words have taken refuge in the night.
Still damp and heavy with sleep,
they roll in a rough river and transform into disdain.
January 22, 2021
A time comes when you can no longer say: my God.
A time of total cleaning up.
A time when you no longer can say: my love.
Because love proved useless.
And the eyes don’t cry.
And the hands do only rough work.
And the heart is dry.
[…]
It is obvious you no longer know how to suffer.
And you want nothing from your friends.
[…]
A time comes when life is an order.
Just life, without any escapes.
A time of total cleaning up.
A time when you no longer can say: my love.
Because love proved useless.
And the eyes don’t cry.
And the hands do only rough work.
And the heart is dry.
[…]
It is obvious you no longer know how to suffer.
And you want nothing from your friends.
[…]
A time comes when life is an order.
Just life, without any escapes.
April 8, 2020
When I was born, a crooked angel,
the kind who live in shadows,
said: Go, Carlos! Be gauche in life.
The houses spy the men
chasing after women.
Perhaps if the afternoon were blue
there wouldn’t be so many desires.
The tram passes by full of legs:
white black yellow legs.
Why so many legs, God, my heart asks.
But my eyes
never ask a thing.
The man behind the moustache
is serious, simple, and strong.
Almost never talks.
Has a few, close friends,
that man behind the glasses and the moustache.
Lord, why did you abandon me
if you knew I wasn’t God?
if you knew I was weak.
World world vast globe
if my name were Job
it would be a rhyme, not a solution.
World world vast globe
vaster still is my heart.
I ought not tell you,
but this moon
but this congac
gives us heartache like the devil.
December 7, 2015
Beautiful, truthful and, therefore, sad poetry. Many poems have the power of newspaper cuts or testaments. Nothing pathetic. Just the basic facts of existence.
July 5, 2022
Read this during my travels in Brazil. The poetry was very simple but beautiful and inspired me to look at life through a little more of a reflectively. The morals deep within the poet really shone through in the poems too harking on the importance of love and self awareness. I would definitely recommend as I'm sure Brazilian poets are a bit of an untapped gem and I'm excited to find more.
February 4, 2021
I have just two hands
And the feeling of the world...
And the feeling of the world...
October 27, 2018
"How to do or undo
the undoable not-done ?"
-from “Declaration In Court”
"Always on my lips, a wax seal.
Always in my no, that trauma.
Always in my love, sudden night.
Always in myself, my enemy.
And always in my always, the same absence."
-from “Buried Alive”
"What can one creature among other creatures
do but love ?
love and forget,
love and mislove,
love, unlove, love ?
always, and with wide eyes, love ?"
-from “Love”
"What noise is that on the stairs ?
It’s love coming to an end,
it’s the man who shut the door
and hung himself with the curtain."
- from “Empathetic Dream”
the undoable not-done ?"
-from “Declaration In Court”
"Always on my lips, a wax seal.
Always in my no, that trauma.
Always in my love, sudden night.
Always in myself, my enemy.
And always in my always, the same absence."
-from “Buried Alive”
"What can one creature among other creatures
do but love ?
love and forget,
love and mislove,
love, unlove, love ?
always, and with wide eyes, love ?"
-from “Love”
"What noise is that on the stairs ?
It’s love coming to an end,
it’s the man who shut the door
and hung himself with the curtain."
- from “Empathetic Dream”
January 28, 2025
Watched a zizek lecture today he started rambling about poetry and its ability to legitimize fascist rhetoric(trying to push the blame off philosophy.) He mentioned a variety of different texts but I think this is a book that disproves him.
This is poetry at a political efficiency I hope to see again someday. De Andrade renounces capitalism and a utopia that seeks to disintegrate a deeper humanity.
Watching him age with every poem is such a privelege I understand completely why he is a figurehead of Brazilian literature. Even at his oldest and most stylistically confined he invokes a humility that transcends each poem.
Beautiful things, I liked the one abt his dad a lot
This is poetry at a political efficiency I hope to see again someday. De Andrade renounces capitalism and a utopia that seeks to disintegrate a deeper humanity.
Watching him age with every poem is such a privelege I understand completely why he is a figurehead of Brazilian literature. Even at his oldest and most stylistically confined he invokes a humility that transcends each poem.
Beautiful things, I liked the one abt his dad a lot
Read
May 3, 2016A great foreign poet that deserves any poetry lovers attention. One of my favorite poems is "A Stone in the Middle of the Road." The collection takes you through decades of his career. Seemingly simple but wonderfully complex.
August 21, 2023
I love poetry!!!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews