Melted in the Crucible

A very short except from "I-Juca Pirama," written by Gonçalves Dias (1823-1864). The last members of a Native Brazilian clan are trying to survive, a blind father and his son, who unbeknownst to him abdicates his bravery in order to care for his frail, elderly parent. VI "My son, where are you?" "Right by your side; Food and drink I bring. New your vigor be; We'll go at once!" "You took so long! The sun, unborn when you left, Now shines feeble, I sense it!" "Yes, long I wandered, Lost in the jungle maze, but found my way. Hasten! We must leave anon." "What new trials await us? Ordeals… Agonies… What else has our God in store for us? The arrows of affliction are over, On our skin not a single patch  Uncovered with bruises... You're shaking!" "Surely because I was hunting…" "Oh, my dear son!"

No, not one of Pound's imagist poems... This is Mário Quintana in his sophisticated simplicity: WAR Planes shot down; crosses falling from the sky. What real poetry is like: ON PAGINATION Poetry books should have wide margins, several blank pages and enough blanks on each printed page so that children may fill them in with cats, men, planes, houses, chimneys, trees, moons, bridges, cars, dogs, horses, oxen, plaits and stars which will themselves become part of the poems. Life according to the poet: RHYTHM The door the housewife moves and sweeps it clean sweeps it clean sweeps it clean The basin the young girl cleans her teeth cleans her teeth cleans her teeth The brook the washerwoman beats her clothes beats her clothes beats her clothes until at last                   the world goes round                                             ...

A translation of one more poem by the great Mário Quintana. THE FINAL POEM All through my extreme unction I was abstracted... Ah, this hopeless obsession with thinking about something else!  Incidentally, everything is always something else - the secret of poetry. As the priest's voice came sounding like a beetle, I was thinking of my first shoes treading and treading, to this day,  the paths of this world.

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, ...

  João Guimarães Rosa, Brazil's best writer ever, a genius. Virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, mainly on account of poor translations, "literal" renderings intended to please commercially-minded editors.  Want to have an inkling of what he would have sounded like in English? Read on. NONE João Guimarães Rosa Inside the farmhouse, found at random among several other resought far-off places, there came to be, in our minds, irreversible great facts—reflections, flashes of lightning and sparkles—stifled by darkness.  The mansion—strange, vanishing, behind mountains and ranges, ever, at the edge of the woods of some riverbank, which forbids imagining. Or perhaps it hasn't been on a farm, nor along the undiscovered path, nor that far? It is no longer possible to find out — nevermore. (...)  Only now sluggishly there dawns the demanding glimmer of reminiscence, at the end perhaps of an extremely long journey, striking his consciousness. (...) Plentymuch, howev...

This is my translation of an excerpt from the poem "Dia de São Tomé," by the talented Portuguese poet Matilde Campilho: I could write your name 70 times in a row But that wouldn't scare away this longing to utter your name through salt and teeth Or soothe the pain of your physical absence from the hollow specter sitting across from me at the restaurant every day at 11am From the passenger's seat as I drive  to the state tax agency the good old wasted state so vastly overrated Writing your name over and over from top to bottom then from left to right and diagonally like somebody hoping to win at four in a row some day... that's a poor substitute for the noise of water inside my mouth when the word You used to reverberate  between the palate and sea water against my teeth and ended up in the fissures of some rock Yes, your name between one dive and another Choking on your name and sea water and laughs Your name coming against your face at exactly the sam...

Maria's photo in memory of my wonderful mom A sick mother's prayer Maria Cecília de M. Duprat O Lord, make me humble enough to accept that I am now being served, the one who used to wait on others so wholeheartedly at all times. Grant that I may accept the burden of being dependent - heavier than the burden of pain! Grant that I may accept the trouble I am now, the disturbance this disease causes. This sacrifice was needed that I might comprehend what you once said: "There is more joy in giving than in receiving ..." I do not want to dwell on the hustle and bustle of old. Neither do I wish to miss the manifold examples of my labors for others. Today my altar is this bed and my world, this confined room. In this succession of endless days and hours, I want my inertness to bear fruit as a seed watered by the blood of Christ. Like Abraham, let me say at every moment, "Here I am, Lord!" Let this be my response to anything you ask of me. I may not actually hear ...