Elisa Lucinda: Biography and Poems | Brazilian Poetry

Biography.

Elisa Lucinda (born February 2, 1958) is a Brazilian actress, singer, poet, writer and journalist. Lucinda attended journalism school at Vitória, when she worked writing for newspapers and in a news program. Lucinda was 27 when she decided to move to Rio de Janeiro to become an actress; however, her poetry was more successful.The poet Elisa Lucinda talks about love, pain, passion, frustration, birth, death; these universal themes that accompany the despair and hope of us all. But her poetry doesn’t shy away from dealing with social problems that are quite Brazilian. Racism, sexism, mistreatment of the poor.

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Warning of The Menstruating Moon

Boy, watch out for her!
Care must be taken with these menstruating people...
Imagine a waterfall inside out:
In every act, the body confesses.
Watch out, boy
Sometimes it looks like grass, it looks like ivy
Beware of these people who generate
These people who metamorphose
Half legible, half mermaid.
The belly grows, it explodes humanities
And still goes back to the place that is the same
But is another, there it is:
Every word said, before saying it, man, consider...
Your damn mouth doesn't know that every word is an ingredient
That will fall on the same pan planet.
Be careful with every character you send her!
She's used to living inside herself,
Transforming fact into element
Sauting, boiling, frying everything
And everything still bleeds the following month.
Watch out, boy, when ya think ya escaped
Then it's your turn!
Because I'm a good friend
I’m talking the "real" talk
I know every one, besides being one of them.
You who came out of her crack
Delicate force when returning to it.
Don't go uninvited
Or without the proper wooing...
Sometimes by the bridge of a kiss
You soon reach the "secret city"
The lost atlantis.
At other times, several poundings and more you move from her.
Watch out, boy, that since you have a snake between your legs
You fall into the condition of carelessness
Before the serpent itself
She is a snake with an apron
Do not despise domestic meditation
It's from the everyday dust
That women draw philosophizing
Cooking, sewing and you arrive with your hand in pocket
Judging the art of lunch: yuck!…
Don't you know where are your boxers?
Ah, my desired dog
So concerned about growling, snarling and barking
That you forget about biting slowly
You forget about enjoying, sharing.
And then when you want to assault
You call her chick and cow.
They are two worthy neighbors of our world!
What you have to say about cows?
What you have I'll tell and don't you complain:
Your mom's a cow. a milking cow.
Cow and chick...
Well, it does not offend. it praises, flatters:
By comparing queen to queen
Ovules, eggs and milk
Thinking that you're assaulting
That you're swearing dirty words.
You're not, man.
You're quoting the beginning of the world!

Translated by Rubens Chinali
Published in Contemporary Brazilian Poetry (2020).

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Ana Martins Marques: Biography and Poems | Brazilian Poetry

Biography.

Ana Martins Marques is a Brazilian poet (Belo Horizonte, 07 de novembro de 1977). She has received various literary awards in Brazil, among them the Prêmio da Fundação Biblioteca Nacional and third place for Prêmio Oceanos. Her poems have been translated into English, French, Italian, and Spanish. His poetry combines formal elaboration with a reflection on life, promoting a narrowing between language and experience.

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The Sea

She said
the sea
said
sometimes improbable things come
not merely plastic bags cardboard wood
empty bottles condoms beer cans
also umbrellas shoes fans
and a sofa
she said
it’s possible to look
for a long time
it is here I come
to clear my eyes
she said
those who were born far from
the sea
those who never saw
the sea
what will they make
of the limitless?
what will they make
of leaving?
will they think of taking a long road
and not looking back?
think of airport
highways
border controls?
when they say
I want to kill myself
will they think of blades
guns
poison?
for I only think
of the sea

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One day

We didn’t sleep;
we believed the night
could be replaced by coffee
and it was

our round heads
under a round moon

we were saved by the small restaurant open until so
                                                                              [late]
keeping in its heart bright red
soup

you carried in your pockets
coins from three countries

dawn came like the cover
of a notebook

we talked as though writing subtitles
for photographs

we wanted so much
so little

we took the bus
at the last minute

traveled
side by side
like a bilingual
edition

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Summer

The days aren’t hard
or compact,
they’re days of vacation,
bright and open days,
freed from the calendar,
days that recall those other days,
from some other childhood,
which perhaps never existed.
We want the sun
to stain our skin,
the sand to hurt us,
we spend all our money
on hot beers,
we let the water salt our bodies
and strip ourselves of so many other products
(the creams, the crimes).
Of these days we accept everything,
their excitement and excesses,
we light salty cigarettes
and let the light hurt our eyes,
we linger in conversations
brittle as these stars we find.
Apart from one another,
but at the disposal of the sun,
we accept each other
like one lizard
accepts another.
And at the end of the day
– the sun left its mark, our bodies traced,
there is nothing to tell
other than the sea and its repetition,
its waters taught us about an unstable silence,
made of foam,
we move in the rhythm
of the beach’s almond trees
– we are more porous
we’re thirstier,
we awaken in us
certain submarine thoughts
and a memory forged
in the light flesh of forgetting.
But this you can’t see in these photographs.

---

Translated by Elisa Wouk Almino

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Conceição Evaristo: Biography and Poems | Brazilian Poetry

Biography.

Maria da Conceição Evaristo de Brito (born November 29, 1946) is a Brazilian writer. She was born in a favela in the southern area of Belo Horizonte, to a very poor family with nine brothers and her mother. She had to work as a domestic servant during her youth until she finished her normal course in 1971, at the age of 25. Conceição Evaristo is a great exponent of contemporary Brazilian literature. She writes about race, gender and class discrimination, especially of black women.

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In Writing...

In writing hunger
With empty-palmed hands
when the hole-stomach
expels famished desires
there is, in this demented movement
the dream-hoping
for any leftovers.

In writing cold
with the tip of my bones
caring in my body the tremor
of pain and shelterless-ness
there is, in this tense movement
the warmth-hoping
for any miserable little vest.

In writing pain,
alone,
searching for the resonance
of another in me
there is in this constant movement
the illusion-hoping
for our doubled consonance.

In writing life
fading and swimming
on departure’s test tube
there is, in this useless movement
the treacherous-hoping
for catching Time
and caressing eternity.

Translated by (?)

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Women Voices

The voice of my great-grandmother
echoed as a child
inside the ship’s bowels.
Echoing moans
of a lost childhood.

The voice of my grandmother
echoed obedience
to the white-owners of everything.

The voice of my mother
whispered echoes of revolt
in the very end of the other’s kitchens
under the trusses
of whites’ dirty linen
along the dusty road
towards the slum.

My voice still
echoes perplexing verses
in rhymes of blood
and
hunger.

The voice of my daughter
uniting all our voices
gathers within itself
the dumb silenced voices
choking in our throats.
The voice of my daughter
gathers within itself
speech and action.
Yesterday - today - now.
In my daughter’s voice
the resonance will be heard
the echo of freedom-life.

Translated by Maria Aparecida Salgueiro de Andrade and Antonio D. Tillis

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My Equal Body

In the darkness of the night
my equal body
diffuses dangers
deciphers messages
whistles and tam-tams.

In equal darkness
my night body
opens volcanically
the ethnic skin
that dresses me.

In the darkness of the night
my equal body
floats tears, oceanlike,
sieving searches
nailing dreams
quilombo-gathering hopes
in the darkness of the night.

Translated by Maria Aparecida Salgueiro de Andrade and Antonio D. Tillis

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Ana Cristina Cesar: Biography and Poems | Brazilian Poetry

Biography.

Ana Cristina César (June 2, 1952 – October 29, 1983) was a poet, literary critic and translator from Rio de Janeiro. She came from a middle-class Protestant background and was usually known as "Ana C." She had written since childhood and developed a strong interest in English literature. She spent some time in England in 1968 and, on returning to Brazil, she became a published author of note. She is considered one of the main names of the mimeograph generation, also known as the marginal poetry of the 1970s.

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First Lesson

The genres of poetry are: lyric, satirical, didactic,
epic, light.
The lyric genre comprises lyricism.
Lyricism is the translation of a subjective feeling, sincere
and personal.
It is the language of the heart, of love.
Lyricism is also so named because in other times
sentimental verses were declaimed to the sound of
the lyre.
Lyricism can be:
a) Elegiac, when it treats sad matters, almost always death.
b) Bucolic, when verse about rustic subjects.
c) Erotic, when verse about love.
Elegiac lyricism comprises the elegy, the dirge, the
threnody, the epitaph, and the epicedium, or funeral
oath.
Elegy is poetry which treats dolesome topics.
The dirge is poetry in homage to a dead person.
It was declaimed beside a bonfire on which the corpse was
incinerated.
Threnody is a poetry which reveals the heart's sorrows.
Epitaph is a short verse form engraved on tombstones.
Epicedium is a poetry which relates to the life
of a dead person.
I look for a long while at a poem's body
until I lose sight of whatever is not body
and feel, separated between my teeth,
a filament of blood
on my gums

Translated by John K

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Ladies’ Talk

I don’t even need to marry
I get all I need from him
I won’t leave here anymore
I really doubt it
This subject of women has come to an end
The cat ate it and enjoyed himself
He dances just like a barrel organ
The writer no longer exists
But also doesn’t have to become a god
Someone’s at the house
Do you think he can stand it?
Mr. Tenderness is knocking
I couldn’t care less
Conspiring: I answer back again
Trap: dying to know
She’s strange
Also you lie too much
He’s stalking me
Who did you sell your time to?
I don’t really know: I slept with that klutz
It makes no sense at all
But what about the gig?
He’s being a good boy
I think it’s an act
Don’t even start

Translated by Brenda Hillman

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Grams

The heart has little irony in the late afternoon
Carnal secrets on the surface of the skin
skinny poems, just waiting

Life refuses to carry itself off to the hills
holes dug by weasels
grass flowering

In the pool the heart has almost no breath left
In the yards it fires wet
In closed rooms it avoids car horns

Life is put in charge of the windows
But it ends up plummeting in a rush
It does not fit Gives no support Is weightless

Translated by John K

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Paulo Leminski: Biography and Poems | Brazilian Poetry

Biography.

Paulo Leminski Filho (August 24, 1944 – June 7, 1989) was a Brazilian poet, translator, literary critic, biographer, teacher and judoka. He was noted for his avant-garde work, an experimental novel and poetry inspired in concrete poetry, as well as abundant short lyrics derived from haiku and related forms. Leminski was a polyglot; he knew French, English, Spanish, Japanese, Latin and Greek. He translated into Portuguese works by Petronius, John Fante, Alfred Jarry, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Yukio Mishima.

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Counter-narcissus

in me
I see
the other
and another
finally dozens
trains passing
wagons full of hundreds of people

the other
what's in me is you
you
and you

just as
I am in you
I am in him
in us
and only when
we are in us
we are at peace
even if we are alone

Translated by Rosaliene Bacchus

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Deep Inside

Deep inside, in the deep,
in the deep, inside,
we would like
to see our problems
solved by decree

from this date on,
sorrow with no remedy
might as well be void
and in it - perpetual silence

extinguished by law any remorse,
damned you who look back,
behind there is nothing,
and nothing more

but problems are not solved,
problems have many heirs,
and on Sundays they all go to take a walk
the problem, his lady
and other tiny little problems.

Translated by Ane Montarroyos and Greg Berry

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Iceberg

An Arctic poem,
Of course, that is what I want.
A pale practice,
Three verses in ice.
A surface-phrase
Where no life-phrase
Will be possible.
No more phrases. None.
A null lyre,
Reduced to the purest minimum,
A blink of the soul,
The only unique thing.
But I speak. And, in speaking, I cause
Clouds of equivocations
(Or a swarm of monologues?)
Yes, winter, we are alive.

Translated by Lavinia Saad

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Hilda Hilst: Biography and Poems | Brazilian Poetry

Biography.

Hilda Hilst (April 21, 1930 – February 4, 2004) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, and playwright. She is lauded as one of the most important Portuguese-language authors of the twentieth century. Her work touches on the themes of mysticism, insanity, the body, eroticism, and female sexual liberation. Hilst greatly revered the work of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett and the influence of their styles like stream of consciousness and fractured reality in her own work. In several of her writings Hilst tackled politically and socially controversial issues, such as obscenity, queer sexuality, and incest.

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Poems for the Men of our Time

Beloved life, my death lingers
What to say to man
What journey to propose? Kings, ministers
And all of you, politicians,
What word besides gold and darkness
Stays in your ears?
Besides your RAPACITY
What do you know
Of the souls of men?
Gold, conquest, profit, deception
And our bones
And the blood of peoples
And the lives of men
Between your teeth.

***

To meet you, Man of my time,
And in the hope you may subdue
The rosette of fire, hatred, and wars,
I will sing to you eternally in the hope of knowing you
one day
And invite the poet and all those lovers of words, and
the others,
Alchemists, to sit with you at your table.
Things will be simple and round, fair. I will sing to you
My own crudeness and earlier unease,
Appearances, the lacerated love of men
My own love is yours
The mystery of the rivers, earth, seed.
I will sing to you the One who made me a poet and
promised me

Compassion and tenderness and peace on Earth
If within you still resides these gifts he gave you.

Translated by Rosaliene Bacchus

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Of Desire

Because there is desire within me, everything glimmers.
Before, daily life was thinking of heights
Seeking Another decanted
Deaf to my human bark.
Sap and sweat, they never came to be.
Today, flesh and bones, laborious, lascivious
You take my body. And what rest you give me
After the readings. I dreamt of cliffs
When there was a garden by my side.
I thought of climbs where there were no signs.
Ecstatic, I fuck you
Instead of yapping at Nothingness.

Translated by Lavinia Saad

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Ten Calls to a Friend

If I seem to you nocturnal and imperfect
Look at me again. Because tonight
I looked at myself as if you were looking at me.
And it was as if water
Desired

To leave your house that is the river,
Just slipping by, not even touching the riverbank.

I looked at you. And it has been so long
That I understand that I am earth. It has been so long
That I wait
For your brotherly body of water
To stretch over mine. Pastor and naut

Look at me again. From a lesser height.
And more attentively.

Translated by Lavinia Saad

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João Cabral de Melo Neto: Biography and Poems | Brazilian Poetry

Biography.

João Cabral de Melo Neto (January 6, 1920 – October 9, 1999) was a Brazilian poet and diplomat, and one of the most influential writers in late Brazilian modernism. He was awarded the 1990 Camões Prize and the 1992 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the only Brazilian poet to receive such award to date. He was considered until his death a perennial competitor for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Melo Neto's works are noted for the rigorous, yet inventive attention they pay to the formal aspects of poetry. He derives his characteristic sound from a traditional verse of five or seven syllables (called ‘’redondilha’’) and from the constant use of oblique rhymes. His style ranges from the surrealist tendency which marked his early poetry to the use of regional elements of his native northeastern Brazil.

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Weaving The Morning

One rooster cannot weave a morning.
He will always need other roosters:
one to catch the cry that he
and toss it to another, another rooster
to catch the cry that a rooster before him
and toss it to another, and other roosters
that with many other roosters crisscross
the sun threads of their rooster cries,
so that the morning, form a tenuous tissue,
will grow by he weaving of all the roosters.

2

And enlarging into a fabric involving all,
erecting itself into a tent where all may enter,
extending itself for all, in the canopy
(the morning) that floats without any frame:
the morning, a canopy made of a weave so airy
that, one woven, it rises by itself: balloon light.

Translated by Richard Zenith

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Sprechless Rivers

When a river cuts, it cuts completely
the discourse its water was speaking;
cut, the water breaks into pieces,
into pools of water, paralyzed water.
Situated in a pool, water resembles
a word in its dictionary situation:
isolated, standing in the pool of itself
and, because I is standing, stagnant.
Because it is standing, it is mute,
and mute because it doesn´t communicate,
because this river´s syntax, the current
of water o which it ran, was cut.

*

The course of a river, its river-discourse,
can rarely be swiftly restored;
a river needs considerable water current
to remake the current which made it.
Unless the grandiloquence of a flood
imposes for a time another language,
a river needs many currents of water
for all of its pools to be phrase —
being restored from one pool to the next
into short phrases, then phrase to phrase,
until the river-sentence of the only discourse
in which it can speak will defy the drought.

Translated by Yves Boonefoy

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Poem

My eyes have telescopes
trained on the street
trained on my soul
a mile away.

Women come and go swimming
in invisible rivers.
Cars like blind fish
compose my mechanical visions.

For twenty years I've not said the word
I always expect from me.
I´ll go on indefinitely gazing
at the portrait of me, dead.

Translated by W. S. Merwin

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