Biography.
Cora Coralina is the pseudonym of the Brazilian writer and poet Anna Lins dos Guimarães Peixoto Bretas (August 20, 1889 – April 10, 1985). She is considered one of the most important Brazilian writers. Her first book (Poemas dos Becos de Goiás e Estórias Mais) was published in June 1965. She spent her working life as a confectioner in a small bakery, and where she drew upon her experiences of rural Brazilian culture to create her rich poetic prose, often featuring the Brazilian countryside, and in particular focusing upon life of the citizens who lived in the small towns across the state of Goiás.
Learn To Live
I don’t know... If life is short
or too long for us.
But I know that nothing we endure
makes sense, if we don’t touch people's hearts.
Most times it’s enough to be:
the receptive shoulder
enveloping arm
comforting word
respectful silence
infectious joy
flowing tears
caressing look
gratifying wish
encouraging love.
And this is not something from another world.
It’s what gives meaning to life.
It's what makes life
neither short
nor too long.
But it would be intense
true, pure...
While it lasts.
Translated by Rosaliene Bacchus
Cora Coralina, Who Are You?
I am a woman like any other,
I came from last century
and I brought with me all the ages.
I was born in the depletion of a mountain
Between the mountains and the hills.
“Far from everywhere”.
In a city from which they took
the gold and left the stones.
My childhood and adolescence took place
alongside this.
The jagged cliffs
responded to my desires.
And I immensely secluded in the highlands
that turned blue in the distance.
In a hunger for life I took
flight on the impossible wings
of dreams.
I come from last century.
I belong to a bridge
generation, between freedom
of the slaves and free work.
Between fallen monarchy
and the republic that installed itself.
All the rancidity of the past was
present.
The brutality, the incomprehension,
the ignorance, the carrancism.
Translated by Charlotte Markham
Aninha and Her Stones
Don't let yourself be destroyed ...
Gathering new stones
and building new poems.
Recreate your life, always, always.
Removes stones and plants roses and makes sweets. Restart.
Make your life mean
a poem.
And you will live in the hearts of young people
and in the memory of the generations to come.
This fountain is for use by all thirsty people.
Take your share.
Come to these pages
and do not hinder its use
to those who are thirsty.
Translated by (?)
