from the depths of time
Mário Quintana is one of Brazil's most popular poets. His poems display sophistication under the apparent simplicity of straightforward language and everyday themes. These conceal profound reflections on death, time, old age and poetry itself. Quintana had considerable experience as a translator of Virginia Woolf, Balzac, Proust, Conrad, etc when he published his first book in 1940. A Rua dos Cataventos (The Windmill Street) was followed by many others in a versatility that includes sonnets, free verse, and even children's books. Quintana died on May 5, 1994, at the age of 87. This is my own translation of one of his precious poems: THE LOOKING GLASS Mário Quintana As I was passing by the looking glass my room could not be seen with its bookcases not even my face where time does trickle. Some portraits on the wall - windows for severe grandfathers and grandmas in hoop skirts, inverted parachutes to bring them up from the depths of time. The clock said the time, ...