Pulitzer-Winning Poet Eberhart Dies at 101

[WickedEve]

"Poems in a way are spells against death," Eberhart once told the Concord Monitor. "They are milestones, to see where you were then from where you are now. To perpetuate your feelings, to establish them. If you have in any way touched the central heart of mankind's feelings, you'll survive."

You can read the rest of the article here

 

[Angeline]

The Eclipse

I stood out in the open cold
To see the essence of the eclipse
Which was its perfect darkness.

I stood in the cold on the porch
And could not think of anything so perfect
As mans hope of light in the face of darkness.


Richard Eberhart

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I'm still looking for a report in English, but Eugenio de Andrade died today as well. Angeline, you know him, right?

 

[Angeline]

I'm still looking for a report in English, but Eugenio de Andrade died today as well. Angeline, you know him, right?

I will in a few minutes.



(If I say you're always right, will you put me in your sig line?)

 

[Angeline]

I'm still looking for a report in English, but Eugenio de Andrade died today as well. Angeline, you know him, right?

um, can you help a sistah out? it seems all the entries in Google are in Portuguese.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

http://portugal.poetryinternational.org/cwolk/view/23867

That's a cool site. It has a couple of articles about him, and a number of poems translated to English.

 

[WickedEve]

http://portugal.poetryinternational.org/cwolk/view/23867

That's a cool site. It has a couple of articles about him, and a number of poems translated to English.

Good morning and thanks for the link. I've already Against Obscurity several times. I'm saving that one.

 

[Angeline]

http://portugal.poetryinternational.org/cwolk/view/23867

That's a cool site. It has a couple of articles about him, and a number of poems translated to English.

oooooh.

It's that quality. Like Neruda and Paz. That sensuous precision.

But not quite like Pessoa. I haven't read anyone else quite like him.

Thank you baby.

Words
Eugenio de Andrade

They are like a crystal,
words.
Some a dagger,
some a blaze.
Others,
merely dew.

Secret they come, full of memory.
Insecurely they sail:
cockleboats or kisses,
the waters trembling.

Abandoned, innocent,
weightless.
They are woven of light.
They are the night.
And even pallid
they recall green paradise.

Who hears them? Who
gathers them, thus,
cruel, shapeless,
in their pure shells?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

But not quite like Pessoa. I haven't read anyone else quite like him.

Here is what that site says, as an introduction to Portuguese poetry:

“Portugal is a land of poets.” This statement is so often made by the Portuguese in books, scholarly papers, and discussions of national identity that one is tempted to dismiss it as mere folklore, an absurd generalization. And yet for a smallish country, with about ten million inhabitants, Portugal does seem to publish an astonishing number of poetry collections. Print runs, except for the most famous poets, are modest, from fifteen hundred to two thousand, but print runs for poetry in much larger countries are often about the same.

The oldest known texts in Portuguese are poems, dating from the late 12th century. Curiously enough, ancient Portuguese was the language of poetry for most of the Iberian Peninsula (Catalonia excepted) during the 13th century, when troubadour poetry thrived in the royal courts and in Santiago de Compostela, then a huge pilgrimage centre. Alfonso X (1221-1284), King of Castile and León, produced several large histories, assorted treatises and a legal code, all in Spanish, but wrote his poetry – both religious and profane – in Portuguese. Another curious aspect of Portuguese troubadour poetry is that the love poems, though all composed and sung by men, were very often narrated from a woman’s point of view.

The first great name in Portuguese poetry is Luís de Camões (1524?-1580). Famous for his epic poem The Lusiads, he also produced a large body of highly original lyric poetry, including over 160 exemplary sonnets. There is, to this day, a strong sonnet tradition in Portugal, with contemporary poets such as António Franco Alexandre and Vasco Graça Moura applying the centuries-old form to their thoroughly up-to-date concerns.

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) is the great name of modern Portuguese poetry. With his various ‘heteronyms’ (more than mere pseudonyms, since they had ‘biographies’ of their own and wrote in radically different ways from each other and from their inventor), Pessoa was like a one-man generation of poets. His heteronyms even criticized and commented on each other’s work.

Pessoa, whose poetry only became widely available in the 1940s, was not an easy act to follow, and Portuguese poets in the second-half of the twentieth century went out of their way to experiment with new forms and to explore new thematic territory. The result is an impressive panorama of poetic styles and subjects.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

“Portugal is a land of poets.”

Another sign of it is the date chosen for Day of Portugal - June 10. It's not the day we got our independence, or the date of any military conquest or revolution, but simply the day when Luís de Camões died, June 10, 1580.

 

[Angeline]

Here is what that site says, as an introduction to Portuguese poetry:

Thank you Lauren. That is absolutely fascinating. The Portuguese sonnet is most often Petrarchan rather than Elizabethan, yes? Or not?

And I recall that Pessoa lived in South Africa for a number of years. There is something distinctly different in his voice that is unlike other Portuguese poets I've read. In the poetry of Portugal and Spain, Mexico and Central and South America there is a certain commonality to my ear. The imagery is lush and sensuous; it's also not unlike some of the Middle Eastern poetry I've read in that quality (like Forugh Farrokhzad), and I wonder about the influence of Moorish culture in these other countries' poetry. It plays out in slightly different ways, of course, but Pessoa has that postmodern absurdist streak in his writing. Neruda wrote that way on occasion, but he's the only other writer I can think of who comes remotely close to what Pessoa does.

It fascinates me the way history mixes cultural influences in art. Thanks for the lesson, sweet girl. And yknow, coming from a place whose culture exports bling-bling and McDonald's, you're lucky to be somewhere that celebrates poetry as a national treasure, but I think my tribe rises to the occasion in spite of ourselves.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Thank you Lauren. That is absolutely fascinating. The Portuguese sonnet is most often Petrarchan rather than Elizabethan, yes? Or not?

True Elizabethan is very rare in any romance language, because iambic metre is a concept that is foreign to us. The classic Portuguese sonnet is Petrarchan - with the Petrarchan structure and with 10 or 12 tonal syllable verses.

Here is a modern example of it, less bound to Petrarchan rhyme, written by Carlos de Oliveira - one of my favourite contemporary Portuguese poets. But you'll have to look at the original on the left to catch the rhyme scheme (ABBA CDDC EEF GGF) because the translation doesn't follow it.

Something I have seen some poets doing is, following the tighter Petrarchan scheme, play with the syllabic length of the verses, in order to shift the rhythms completely away from classic sonnets. It's very interesting work.

it's also not unlike some of the Middle Eastern poetry I've read in that quality (like Forugh Farrokhzad), and I wonder about the influence of Moorish culture in these other countries' poetry.

Moorish influence is huge in every aspect of Iberian culture, in our history, in our language, in our architecture. Poetry is no different. We still feel that there's a little bit of Moorish blood flowing in our veins, and no matter where you go, you'll hear myths and stories of love between Catholic knights and Moorish princesses.

The fact is that - unlike it happened in many places, like in the colonisation of America - there were no huge massacres or cultural wars in the Iberian Peninsula. When the Romans came, they didn't kill off the ones that lived here before, we weren't invaded by hordes of Italians. And when the Goths came, and the Arabs, and the Catholic kings, there were no massacres. The people was always the same; the only thing that changed was who they were paying taxes to. So, cultural influences built on each other, but they never erased what was there before.

 

[flyguy69]

True Elizabethan is very rare in any romance language, because iambic metre is a concept that is foreign to us. The classic Portuguese sonnet is Petrarchan - with the Petrarchan structure and with 10 or 12 tonal syllable verses.

Here is a modern example of it, less bound to Petrarchan rhyme, written by Carlos de Oliveira - one of my favourite contemporary Portuguese poets. But you'll have to look at the original on the left to catch the rhyme scheme (ABBA CDDC EEF GGF) because the translation doesn't follow it.

Something I have seen some poets doing is, following the tighter Petrarchan scheme, play with the syllabic length of the verses, in order to shift the rhythms completely away from classic sonnets. It's very interesting work.




Moorish influence is huge in every aspect of Iberian culture, in our history, in our language, in our architecture. Poetry is no different. We still feel that there's a little bit of Moorish blood flowing in our veins, and no matter where you go, you'll hear myths and stories of love between Catholic knights and Moorish princesses.

The fact is that - unlike it happened in many places, like in the colonisation of America - there were no huge massacres or cultural wars in the Iberian Peninsula. When the Romans came, they didn't kill off the ones that lived here before, we weren't invaded by hordes of Italians. And when the Goths came, and the Arabs, and the Catholic kings, there were no massacres. The people was always the same; the only thing that changed was who they were paying taxes to. So, cultural influences built on each other, but they never erased what was there before.

So, why is it called "The Spanish Inquisition"?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

So, why is it called "The Spanish Inquisition"?

The target of the Spanish Inquisition were the Spanish Jews, who were never a dominating cultural influence, and it was all about money, not culture.

 

[flyguy69]

The target of the Spanish Inquisition were the Spanish Jews, who were never a dominating cultural influence, and it was all about money, not culture.

Cool. Did you really know that, or is it written in your bra?