When the world heard Amanda Gorman’s poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, people were speechless and transfixed (per Anderson Cooper’s words in a later interview) by the message, the power of the rendition, and the brilliance and passion of its young author.
It caused a cascade of emotions within me, one being the desire to go back to poetry, to read and catch up on new trends. I had a “poetry phase” two decades ago (I’m counting in decades now? Sheesh) but I’ve since drifted away. How could I?!
I went back and started looking at Brazilian poets, from classics to current, and I am thoroughly enjoying the journey. Let me share it with you.
So here’s a small taste of Brazilian literature, a crash course in the art of the written word from the biggest country in South America. A country that was: colonized by Portugal for over three centuries (hence we speak Portuguese), one of the last countries to effectively abolish slavery, and a country that struggled for decades to shape a unique, unifying national identity.
Our literary journey starts with Brazil’s independence and push for shaping a unique national identity, in 1822. With this, artists embraced exotic and tropical elements as truly “Brazilian”. One such artist was Goncalves Dias, who helped shape Brazil’s initial Romantic period with his poem Exile Song, written while he finished his studies in Portugal.
Enjoy!
The Song of Exile
by Antônio Gonçalves Dias
translated by Nelson Ascher
My homeland has many palm-trees
and the thrush-song fills its air;
no bird here can sing as well
as the birds sing over there.
We have fields more full of flowers
and a starrier sky above,
we have woods more full of life
and a life more full of love.
Lonely night-time meditations
please me more when I am there;
my homeland has many palm-trees
and the thrush-song fills its air.
Such delights as my land offers
Are not found here nor elsewhere;
lonely night-time meditations
please me more when I am there;
My homeland has many palm-trees
and the thrush-song fills its air.
Don’t allow me, God, to die
without getting back to where
I belong, without enjoying
the delights found only there,
without seeing all those palm-trees,
hearing thrush-songs fill the air.
How did you like it? Can you see the exotic elements that Dias claims as the essence of his yearning and of Brazilian imagery?
Check back for more literary gems like this one, and you’ll just learn a little more about a far-away country (we’re not going anywhere in this pandemic anyway…)
Cheers!
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