28 Portuguese Poets

by Richard Zenith (Editor), Alexis Levitin (Editor), Eugénio de Andrade

This major bilingual anthology, edited and introduced by Richard Zenith, and with English translations by Richard Zenith and Alexis Levitin, introduces the work of 28 Portuguese poets (beginning with Fernando Pessoa and his ‘heteronyms’), and reveals a richly varied body of verse that is at once a place of departure and exploration as well as, in the words of Alexandre O’Neill’s ‘Portugal’, “an ongoing discussion with myself”. Among the poets included are Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, Álvaro de Campos, Fernando Pessoa, Florbela Espanca, Jorge de Sena, Sophia de Mello Breyner, Carlos de Oliveira, Eugénio de Andrade, Mário Cesariny Alexandre O’Neill, António Ramos Rosa, Herberto Helder, Ruy Belo, Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão, Luiza Neto Jorge, Vasco Graça Moura, António Franco Alexandre, Al Berto, Nuno Júdice, Ana Luísa Amaral, Adília Lopes, Paulo Teixeira, José Tolentino Mendonça, Luís Quintais, Daniel Faria, Margarida Vale de Gato and Daniel Jonas. - See more at: http://www.dedaluspress.com/p/28_port...

Genres: Poetry, Portugal

285 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Richard Zenith is an acclaimed translator and literary critic. His translations include Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet and Fernando Pessoa and Co.: Selected Poems, which won the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. The recipient of Portugal’s Pessoa Prize, Zenith lives in Lisbon, Portugal.

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the texture of poems make me extend my arms to embrace prosody, when poetic imagery makes time and place scintillate on the versed page, I know I've been hooked. This is a collection I'll treasure for its careful placement of poet and poem, its representation of each generation, and how it speaks universally and still manages to sing of Portugal: culture, rich history, and language (the poems all appear in Portuguese and English).

from You Are Welcome to Elsinore by Mario Cesariny

Between us and words there is molten metal
between us and words there are spinning propellers
and they can kill us ravish us extract
from deep down in us the most valuable secret
between us and words there are burning looks
spaces full of people with their backs turned
tall poisonous flowers closed doors
stairways clocks ticking and children sitting
waiting for their time and their precipice

For quite some time, Portuguese children waited, as the world seemed to turn its back on the inherent problem of a country stifled by control. Cesariny, with others, founded the Portuguese surrealist movement, celebrating freedom and individual liberties, and according to the notes on each author, "he quit writing and dedicated himself exclusively to visual art," towards the end of his life. I sensed the visual artistry in Cesariny's poetry, especially in "Being Beauteous," one of my favorites.

Floating on words, I found refuge in the lucidity of metered language that is bold and rebellious; words that speak of pride, pain, and poverty; words advocating love, rebuking censorship and dictatorship. Like Alexandre O'Neill's sarcastic "Standing At Fearful Attention," for instance, which shows that when

Standing at fearful attention, we're grateful
to fear, which keeps us from going mad.
Decision and courage are bad
for our health; life without living is safer.

(In Saramago's Raised from the Ground, when Mau-Tempo stood at attention to face the army officials torturing him, he could have recited these very words).

To find new meaning in language, discover structure through syntax, yes -- this is what I wrote in the margins of my book as I read. Even the foregoing of the common punctuation, replaced by emphasis on form and meter, is evocative. However, the voices of the female poets in this collection really lured me, for they weren't afraid to write with subjectedness:

From Houses by Luiza Neto Jorge

She vowed to be a virgin all her life
She lowered the blinds over her eyes
and fed on spiders
dampness
slanting rays of sunlight

When touched she wanted to flee
if a door was opened
she concealed her sex

She caved in under a summer spasm
all wet from a masculine sun

It's in the storytelling, the rhythm, the way the words made me feel during days when prose wouldn't suffice. Maybe because poetry is music to my soul. Maybe because poetry makes me work more and dig deeper to sense language and meaning. Maybe because poetry says so much in so few words. Maybe because sometimes I just need the world to shut up and communicate in only a few necessary words.

Nothing was more humorous and thrilling than hearing Richard Zenith (translator) read this Adilia Lopes' poem (excerpted) aloud, to a room of cheering professors/artists in Portugal:

I Want To Fuck to fuck
to find joy in fucking
if this revolution
won't let me
fuck til I die
then the revolution
is a lie
(of course, the word to pay attention to is 'revolution' but what the hell…)

It was poet and professor Ana Lulsa Amaral's serene sensuality, however, in "All So Fragile," that had me captivated by her clever start and end, by the gorgeous tonality. So what better way to end my love tale about 28 Potruguese Poets, than on this note of being:

All So Fragile

I try to push you from off the poem
lest I ruin it with the emotion you stir:
eyes half-closed, guarding against time,
I dream of it from afar, free without you.

I purge from it your eyes, smile, lips, gaze:
things that are you but all so fragile…
And panic strikes: what if you die there
on the floor with no text, fatally expurgated?

And if you quit breathing? If I see you no more
for pushing you away, lyrical with emotion?
My panic grows: and if you're not there?
What if you're not there where the poem is?

Erotically I breathe in and out with you:
first an adverb, then an adjective, then
a verse that's pure emotion and declarations.
And I end up with you on top of the poem,
in the simple present, articles in the dark.

[Flo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thinking is a discomfort, like walking in the rain
When the wind kicks up and it seems to rain harder.

*

Pensar incomoda como andar à chuva
Quando o vento cresce e parece que chove mais.
—Alberto Caeiro

It has been said that people don’t change, things do. In the world according to Pessoa, there were no certainties. Everything was as if. It was not just to have fun with us, or with literature, that he divided himself into alter egos – including several dozen lesser heteronyms who wrote poetry and prose in Portuguese, English and even French; it was because the notion of a coherent, solid-state I struck him as an illusion. No one is today what he or she was yesterday. We are in permanent flux.
Thoughts change feelings, feelings change thoughts.


Nov 7, 18
* Later on my blog.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful anthology. I didn't know that Portuguese poetry was so modern! I've fallen in love with a poem about a magnolia written by a young monk who died under strange circumstances. I've had another proof of Amaral's craftsmanship of words. I've enjoyed the surrealist movement (as usual), especially Cesariny and Rosa. I've savoured Helder's imagery of fruit (“Escrevo / uma canção para ser inteligente dos frutos / na língua, por canais subtis, até / uma emoção escura”)...
And the list is much longer: each of these palavras is precious to me

[Helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice overview of 20th century Portuguese poetry wonderfully translated.
Perfect for English speaking people who wish to get acquainted with Portuguese poets.

The poems could have more notes about its context and references (which might be difficult to grasp because of the chronological and cultural differences).
Despite its innovative ratio, it could have included more women (7 /28).

[David Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's possible that I give too many books 5 stars when I'm still looking for the next page but I've spent a lot of time in this book and will again.

[māris šteinbergs · Rating 4 out of 5]

it was a bit too little from each poet
hopefully I’ll stumble upon some on them mentioned in this book somewhere else