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Selected Poetry, 1937–1990
Brings together a representative selection of the work of one of Brazil's most respected poets, including many poems published in English for the first time.
This bilingual anthology brings together a representative selection from more than a half century of this distinguished Brazilian poet's lifetime work. Along with previously translated poems are many others in English for the first time. The remarkable group of poets and translators includes Elizabeth Bishop, Alastair Reid, Galway Kinnell, Louis Simpson, and W. S. Merwin.
This bilingual anthology brings together a representative selection from more than a half century of this distinguished Brazilian poet's lifetime work. Along with previously translated poems are many others in English for the first time. The remarkable group of poets and translators includes Elizabeth Bishop, Alastair Reid, Galway Kinnell, Louis Simpson, and W. S. Merwin.
- GenresPoetry
214 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1994
2 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
About the author
João Cabral de Melo Neto
75 books127 followersJoão Cabral de Melo Neto was born in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil, and is considered one of the greatest Brazilian poets of all time.
He is often quoted saying "I try not to perfume the flower". His works are said to be dry, devoid of exaggerated emotions that are usually associated with poetry, sticking usually to images and actions and physical descriptions rather than feelings. The image of an engineer designing a building is often used to describe his poetry. It usually follows a strict meter and assonant rhymes.
He worked as a diplomat for most of his life.
In 1990, he won the Camões Prize, the greatest prize in literature of the Portuguese language. In 1992, João Cabral received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, which some consider to be almost as prestigious as the Nobel Prize.
He is often quoted saying "I try not to perfume the flower". His works are said to be dry, devoid of exaggerated emotions that are usually associated with poetry, sticking usually to images and actions and physical descriptions rather than feelings. The image of an engineer designing a building is often used to describe his poetry. It usually follows a strict meter and assonant rhymes.
He worked as a diplomat for most of his life.
In 1990, he won the Camões Prize, the greatest prize in literature of the Portuguese language. In 1992, João Cabral received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, which some consider to be almost as prestigious as the Nobel Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 2, 2018
My memory full of words
my thoughts seeking phantoms
my nightmares many nights overdue.
*
to write is to reach the extreme
of oneself; whoever is there
writing from within this nudity,
the most naked that one can be,
does not want others to see
what there is of grimace,
of tics, of revealing gestures,
of little that is spectacular
in the skewed vision of a soul
in the strain of creation.
my thoughts seeking phantoms
my nightmares many nights overdue.
*
to write is to reach the extreme
of oneself; whoever is there
writing from within this nudity,
the most naked that one can be,
does not want others to see
what there is of grimace,
of tics, of revealing gestures,
of little that is spectacular
in the skewed vision of a soul
in the strain of creation.
September 23, 2022
At the end of a melancholy world
men read newspapers.
Indifferent men eating oranges
that flame like the sun.
They gave me an apple to remind me
of death. I know that cities telegraph
asking for kerosene. The veil I saw flying
fell in the desert.
No one will write the final poem
about this private twelve o'clock world.
Instead of the last judgment, what worries me
is the final dream.
September 16, 2009
I think that there can't be any Latin American surrealists, per se. Because surrealists lie so heavily on the idea of symbols to describe the real, the dream state imbibing Reality. But Latin Americans live amongst symbols, dwell within them. It is a dependency on symbols, that is never quenched. A sea populated with searches for new meanings. Surrealists are fishermen over this sea, but Latin American writers are so much a part of it; they are anenomes.
With that, I give you Joao Cabral de Melo Neto, whose symbols are immense, but not caught in the dream. they are the working image of the day, easily characterized by the abstract in that that is all. Its morph is the understanding of its capacity--the life it leads is not described by its action, but by its relation to the action. For instance:
The sea blew bells
the bells dried the flowers
the flowers were heads of saints
This is not a simple tautology. It is an instantiation. And not of any of these specific terms; i.e. sea, bells, flowers, saints. Rather it is a morphology of the mind which can only be represented by the metaphors which characterize the actions of the mind. The mind is like the sea like the bells like the flowers like the saints. it is a reckoning based on their actions, not the mind's. the poem goes on:
My memory full of words
my thoughts seeking phantoms
my nightmares many nights overdue.
At dawn, my thoughts set free
flew like telegrams
and in windows lit through the night
the portrait of the dead woman
struggled desperately to flee.
A poem of mind needs these metaphors, because otherwise it would have to be a treatise on the philosophical conondrum of expectation and wait. Here it is concisely, the sensation, as simple as pie: the mind is a fluttering sound of nightmares and change, at the end of its tale comes the horror of knowledge, that being, we all die, everything dies. Yes, yes. Same old story; but here, wicked imagery!
Within the loss of memory
a blue woman reclined
hiding in her arms one
of those cold birds
that the moon floats late at night
on the naked shoulders of the portrait.
And from the portrait two flowers grew
(two eyes two breasts two clarinets)
that at certain hours of the day
grew prodigiously
so that the bicycles of my desperation
might run over her hair.
And on the bicycles that were poems
my hallucinated friends arrived.
Seated in apparent disorder
swallowing their watches with regularity
while the hierophant armed as horesman
uselessly moved his lone arm.
My friend once told me that all songs are love songs. Can this be adapted to poems as well? If so, then we have these brilliant concentrations, studies if you will, on the obsession and persistance of discovery. This is not mere curiosity, but a passion for the essence of life and mind. It is a search for whole foods while time only burns with empty calories. It is digestion. Here it is, "The End of the World":
At the end of a melancholy world
men read the newspapers.
Indifferent men eating oranges
that flame like the sun.
They gave me an apple to remind me
of death. I know that cities telegraph
asking for kerosene. The veil i saw flying
fell in the desert.
No one will write the final poem
about this private twelve o'clock world.
Instead of the last judgment, what worries me
is the final dream.
As i said before, he is not a surrealist. His poetry is very real, very real thoughts. He dips into the surreal as a passionate hero would dip into romance while trying to reason: already so smothered in its infinity it can't be avoided. So he attempts to explain these designs, and he does it, uniquely. Through an introspective play. The poems are almost all in the same structure, small stanzas that form a long line of interfering ideas. They bridge together to form a point, but, like one of his strongest metahpors: the river, they really just float together, an amorphous collection, to embody the soul of this design. Not definable, so much as approachable. And reaching it, with poetic strains, comes not from body or definition, but from theme and image. He is mopping the image, collecting it through his anenome-like gums:
Whenever the wind blows over
the canefield stretched out under
the sun, its inanimate fabric
becomes a sensitive bedsheet:
it changes into a living
flag of green on green,
with green stars born
and lost in the greenness.
the canefield then no longer
resembles empty plazas:
it does not have, like the stones,
the discipline of armies.
Its symmetry is jagged,
like that of waves on sand
or of the waves of people
vying in the crowded plaza.
He is a poet trying to montage all existence. A connect-the-dots, he is trying to form some contigency, relationship between these images to make them consistent in the focus of, well, urr, a lost sensation that is felt by all:
undercurrents which, surging,
make whirlpools like the ones
crowds form, stars like those
the people in the plaza compose.
With that, I give you Joao Cabral de Melo Neto, whose symbols are immense, but not caught in the dream. they are the working image of the day, easily characterized by the abstract in that that is all. Its morph is the understanding of its capacity--the life it leads is not described by its action, but by its relation to the action. For instance:
The sea blew bells
the bells dried the flowers
the flowers were heads of saints
This is not a simple tautology. It is an instantiation. And not of any of these specific terms; i.e. sea, bells, flowers, saints. Rather it is a morphology of the mind which can only be represented by the metaphors which characterize the actions of the mind. The mind is like the sea like the bells like the flowers like the saints. it is a reckoning based on their actions, not the mind's. the poem goes on:
My memory full of words
my thoughts seeking phantoms
my nightmares many nights overdue.
At dawn, my thoughts set free
flew like telegrams
and in windows lit through the night
the portrait of the dead woman
struggled desperately to flee.
A poem of mind needs these metaphors, because otherwise it would have to be a treatise on the philosophical conondrum of expectation and wait. Here it is concisely, the sensation, as simple as pie: the mind is a fluttering sound of nightmares and change, at the end of its tale comes the horror of knowledge, that being, we all die, everything dies. Yes, yes. Same old story; but here, wicked imagery!
Within the loss of memory
a blue woman reclined
hiding in her arms one
of those cold birds
that the moon floats late at night
on the naked shoulders of the portrait.
And from the portrait two flowers grew
(two eyes two breasts two clarinets)
that at certain hours of the day
grew prodigiously
so that the bicycles of my desperation
might run over her hair.
And on the bicycles that were poems
my hallucinated friends arrived.
Seated in apparent disorder
swallowing their watches with regularity
while the hierophant armed as horesman
uselessly moved his lone arm.
My friend once told me that all songs are love songs. Can this be adapted to poems as well? If so, then we have these brilliant concentrations, studies if you will, on the obsession and persistance of discovery. This is not mere curiosity, but a passion for the essence of life and mind. It is a search for whole foods while time only burns with empty calories. It is digestion. Here it is, "The End of the World":
At the end of a melancholy world
men read the newspapers.
Indifferent men eating oranges
that flame like the sun.
They gave me an apple to remind me
of death. I know that cities telegraph
asking for kerosene. The veil i saw flying
fell in the desert.
No one will write the final poem
about this private twelve o'clock world.
Instead of the last judgment, what worries me
is the final dream.
As i said before, he is not a surrealist. His poetry is very real, very real thoughts. He dips into the surreal as a passionate hero would dip into romance while trying to reason: already so smothered in its infinity it can't be avoided. So he attempts to explain these designs, and he does it, uniquely. Through an introspective play. The poems are almost all in the same structure, small stanzas that form a long line of interfering ideas. They bridge together to form a point, but, like one of his strongest metahpors: the river, they really just float together, an amorphous collection, to embody the soul of this design. Not definable, so much as approachable. And reaching it, with poetic strains, comes not from body or definition, but from theme and image. He is mopping the image, collecting it through his anenome-like gums:
Whenever the wind blows over
the canefield stretched out under
the sun, its inanimate fabric
becomes a sensitive bedsheet:
it changes into a living
flag of green on green,
with green stars born
and lost in the greenness.
the canefield then no longer
resembles empty plazas:
it does not have, like the stones,
the discipline of armies.
Its symmetry is jagged,
like that of waves on sand
or of the waves of people
vying in the crowded plaza.
He is a poet trying to montage all existence. A connect-the-dots, he is trying to form some contigency, relationship between these images to make them consistent in the focus of, well, urr, a lost sensation that is felt by all:
undercurrents which, surging,
make whirlpools like the ones
crowds form, stars like those
the people in the plaza compose.
June 26, 2019
Despite my ability to read, write and speak Brazilian Portuguese (albeit not fluent, but few North Americans speak the language), and my interest in the history, and culture of the country, I had not read any Brazilian poetry. My local independent bookstore has a poetry group and I saw they were reading this poet and decided to read the book and participate.
Melo Neto was one of the most influential poets of the 20th century in Brazil. He was a diplomat as well as a poet (like Pablo Neruda of Chile). He spent in childhood in Pernambuco, a state with a high level of poverty, and a harsh climate. His family were landowners, but Melo Neto demonstrated social awareness and sensitivity to the poorer classes in his life and writing. This is one of the reasons the American poet, Elizabeth Bishop, admired him, translated some of his poetry and became his close friend.
Poesia
Deixa falar as coisas viséveis
deixa falar a aparência das coisas que vivem no tempo
deixa suas vozes serão abafadas.
A voz imensa que dorme no mistério sufocará a todas.
Deixa, que tudo só frutificará
na atmosfera sobrenatural da poesia.
Poetry
Allow all things to speak
allow the surface of all that lives in time to speak
allow this: their voices shall be muffled.
The enormous voice asleep in the mystery
will choke off all other voices.
Allow this, for everything will bear fruit
only in the supernatural atmosphere of poetry.
Translated by Ricardo da Silveira Lobo Sternburg
Melo Neto, as he is referred to in academic accounts, or João Cabral, as he is commonly referred to, lived from 1920-1997. In 1994, he lost his sight and stopped writing poetry because he claimed it was a visual experience for him.
This bilingual text provides an excellent introduction to the poet, one of Brazil's finest. In this marvelous video that features academics and the musicians Chico Buarque and Maria Bethânia, Buarque quips " he was the best poet Brazil never had". This documentary is in Portuguese with captions in Portuguese (this helped me penetrate Buarque and Bethânia's colloquial accents).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpGqa...
Melo Neto was one of the most influential poets of the 20th century in Brazil. He was a diplomat as well as a poet (like Pablo Neruda of Chile). He spent in childhood in Pernambuco, a state with a high level of poverty, and a harsh climate. His family were landowners, but Melo Neto demonstrated social awareness and sensitivity to the poorer classes in his life and writing. This is one of the reasons the American poet, Elizabeth Bishop, admired him, translated some of his poetry and became his close friend.
Poesia
Deixa falar as coisas viséveis
deixa falar a aparência das coisas que vivem no tempo
deixa suas vozes serão abafadas.
A voz imensa que dorme no mistério sufocará a todas.
Deixa, que tudo só frutificará
na atmosfera sobrenatural da poesia.
Poetry
Allow all things to speak
allow the surface of all that lives in time to speak
allow this: their voices shall be muffled.
The enormous voice asleep in the mystery
will choke off all other voices.
Allow this, for everything will bear fruit
only in the supernatural atmosphere of poetry.
Translated by Ricardo da Silveira Lobo Sternburg
Melo Neto, as he is referred to in academic accounts, or João Cabral, as he is commonly referred to, lived from 1920-1997. In 1994, he lost his sight and stopped writing poetry because he claimed it was a visual experience for him.
This bilingual text provides an excellent introduction to the poet, one of Brazil's finest. In this marvelous video that features academics and the musicians Chico Buarque and Maria Bethânia, Buarque quips " he was the best poet Brazil never had". This documentary is in Portuguese with captions in Portuguese (this helped me penetrate Buarque and Bethânia's colloquial accents).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpGqa...
March 18, 2015
I wish I knew Portuguese as I am sure the lyricism of these poems is extraordinary since it is such a beautiful language to listen to and since that lyricism comes through in many of these translations. A good example is the poem "Written With The Body" (Escritos com o corpo) which compares a woman's body to works by Mondrian. These are sometimes intellectual, sometimes sensual, sometimes virtually opaque, but interesting almost without exception. Brazil's poet laureate deserves to be read in the original, though the facing Portuguese of this collection provides a nice facsimile for those of us who are Iberian-challenged.
October 29, 2018
"Within the night at my side
great silent contemplation;
within the night, within the dream
where space and silence are one."
- from “A Man Speaking in the Dark”
great silent contemplation;
within the night, within the dream
where space and silence are one."
- from “A Man Speaking in the Dark”
March 9, 2025
Um doch mal ein bisschen brasilianische Literatur zu lesen ... Aber au, die Lyrik des Diplomaten Cabral, „bedeutendster Vertreter der Generation von 1945“, lebte von 1920 bis 1999, ist eine arg trockene Sache! Man stelle sich auf moderne (vulgo: unverständliche) Lyrik ein, aber im strengem Versmaß, Reime scheuend, stattdessen Assonanzen, ellenlange Zyklen, wo nirgends ein lyrisches Ich spricht, wo auch nicht von den üblichen schönen Dingen, Liebe, Trauer, Trunk, gesprochen wird. Nüchterne Texte über Landschaft, Städte, Architektur. Die konzipierte Moderne der Hauptstadt Brasilia (sein Thema in mehreren Gedichten).
Die englische Version der Wikipedia (zum Zeitpunkt meiner Lektüre gab es in der deutschen noch keinen Eintrag, obwohl der Autor einst als kommender Nobelpreisträger gegolten hatte) sagte:
Ich las übrigens nicht die hier angezeigte englische, zweisprachige Ausgabe, sondern die ebenfalls zweisprachige, verdienstvoll 1982 von der Bibliothek Suhrkamp unter dem Titel „Erziehung durch den Stein“ herausgebrachte. (Mit dem Übersetzer Curt Meyer-Clason, dem Mann, der die portugiesischsprachigen Klassiker damals eigentlich immer machte. Wie gut er als Dichter war, kann ich nicht beurteilen.) Meine Review stelle ich lieber bei den englischsprachigen Kollegen ein, weil es somit ein Coverbild in meinem Stream zu sehen gibt und man auch noch andere Stimmen als nur meine zum Buch vergleichen und weitere Originalzitate lesen kann.
Hier der für mich noch halbwegs sinnlichste, zugänglichste Text, den ich im ganzen Buch finden konnte. Den Rest sich bitte harscher denken!
Den Morgen webend
Ein Hahn allein webt noch keinen Morgen:
immer benötigt er andere Hähne.
Einen der diesen seinen Schrei auffängt
und ihn einem anderen zuwirft; einen anderen Hahn
der den Schrei eines vorigen Hahns auffängt
und ihn einem anderen zuwirft; und andere Hähne
die mit vielen anderen Hähnen die Sonnenfäden
ihrer Hahnenschreie kreuzen,
damit der Morgen aus einem zarten Gewebe
sich zwischen allen Hähnen weiterwebe.
Und zwischen allen zu einem Gewebe wachse
und sich als Zelt erhebe in das alle treten,
und sich für alle zur Plane spanne,
(dem Morgen) die frei schwebt ohne Gerüst.
Der Morgen, Plane aus so luftigem Stoff,
daß er, Stoff, allein steigt: Lichtballon.
Die englische Version der Wikipedia (zum Zeitpunkt meiner Lektüre gab es in der deutschen noch keinen Eintrag, obwohl der Autor einst als kommender Nobelpreisträger gegolten hatte) sagte:
In the poetry of Cabral, antithetical dualities adorned with baroque are worked to exhaustion: between time and space, inside and outside, massive and non-massive, male and female, northeast and Andalusian fertile semidesert, or Savanna and Pernambucan humid desert. It is a poetry that causes some shock in one who expects an poetry of emotions because his work is basically cerebral and „sensationalist“, seeking a purely objective constructive and communicative poetry.
Ich las übrigens nicht die hier angezeigte englische, zweisprachige Ausgabe, sondern die ebenfalls zweisprachige, verdienstvoll 1982 von der Bibliothek Suhrkamp unter dem Titel „Erziehung durch den Stein“ herausgebrachte. (Mit dem Übersetzer Curt Meyer-Clason, dem Mann, der die portugiesischsprachigen Klassiker damals eigentlich immer machte. Wie gut er als Dichter war, kann ich nicht beurteilen.) Meine Review stelle ich lieber bei den englischsprachigen Kollegen ein, weil es somit ein Coverbild in meinem Stream zu sehen gibt und man auch noch andere Stimmen als nur meine zum Buch vergleichen und weitere Originalzitate lesen kann.
Hier der für mich noch halbwegs sinnlichste, zugänglichste Text, den ich im ganzen Buch finden konnte. Den Rest sich bitte harscher denken!
Den Morgen webend
Ein Hahn allein webt noch keinen Morgen:
immer benötigt er andere Hähne.
Einen der diesen seinen Schrei auffängt
und ihn einem anderen zuwirft; einen anderen Hahn
der den Schrei eines vorigen Hahns auffängt
und ihn einem anderen zuwirft; und andere Hähne
die mit vielen anderen Hähnen die Sonnenfäden
ihrer Hahnenschreie kreuzen,
damit der Morgen aus einem zarten Gewebe
sich zwischen allen Hähnen weiterwebe.
Und zwischen allen zu einem Gewebe wachse
und sich als Zelt erhebe in das alle treten,
und sich für alle zur Plane spanne,
(dem Morgen) die frei schwebt ohne Gerüst.
Der Morgen, Plane aus so luftigem Stoff,
daß er, Stoff, allein steigt: Lichtballon.
Tecendo a Manha
Um galo sozinho não tece a manhã:
ele precisará sempre de outros galos.
De um que apanhe esse grito que ele
e o lance a outro: de um outro galo
que apanhe o grito que um galo antes
e o lance a outro; e de outros galos
que com muitos outros galos se cruzem
os fios de sol de seus gritos de galo
para que a manhã, desde uma teia tênue,
se vá tecendo, entre todos os galos.
E se encorpando em tela, entre todos,
se erguendo tenda, onde entrem todos,
se entretendendo para todos, no toldo
(a manhã) que plana livre de armação.
A manhã, toldo de um tecido tão aéreo
que, tecido, se eleva por si: luz balão.
January 8, 2026
Melo Neto is one of the most complex poets I’ve read. His ability to discuss the mundane and often overlooked aspects of Brazilian society is truly incredible. Hailing from a poorer area of the Brazilian northeast means he has a rich understanding of the social inequities which exist in the vast nation.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews