| FLAVIA
ROCHA INTERVIEWS FERREIRA GULLAR
“I am a poet from the Northeast of Brazil, a poet
from Maranhão state, from São Luis city. I am
a poet from the Coqueiro Street, the Afogados Street, from
Medeiros’s Quinta, from the Caga-Osso (“bone-shit”),
from the Sol Street and from Caju Beach. A poet from the house
of the greengrocer Newton Ferreira, from the house of
Dona Zizi, Dodo and Adi’s brother, Newton’s,
Nelson’s, Alzirinha’s, Concita’s, Leda’s,
Norma’s, Consuelo’s, a friend of Esmagado (“crushed”)
and of Espírito da Garagem da Bosta (“the spirit
of the shit garage”). A fugitive and a survivor.
Someone who was able to escape from anonymity, who comes from
minor sufferings, from the everyday and obscure tragedies
that unfold over my homeland’s ceiling, buffered by
sobbing, the tragedy of the nothing-life, the nobody-life.
If what I write makes any sense, it’s giving voice to
this voiceless world.”
– Ferreira Gullar
Ferreira Gullar is even more notorious than the poet he describes.
He is Brazil’s greatest living poet, having won major
national prizes, important international awards, and a nomination
for a Nobel Prize. He has written seventeen books of poetry
and three of fiction, besides essays, chronicles, articles,
and a storming memoir: Rabo de Foguete (Revan, 1998) (Rocket’s
Tail), in which he relates the story of his life in detail
during the seven years he lived in exile – persecuted
by the Brazilian government during the years of military dictatorship.
In 1954, as a twenty-four year old writer living in Rio de
Janeiro, he had his first major literary appearance with the
book A Luta Corporal (The Corporal Fight) a collection of
poems written since 1950. With its typographical and formal
innovations, the book caught the attention of the poets Haroldo
de Campos, Augusto de Campos, and Decio Pignatari, from São
Paulo, who invited him to join the Concrete Movement in 1956.
In 1959, discontent with the premises the concretes expressed
in an article titled, “From the Psychology of Composition
to the Mathematics of Composition,” Gullar left the
group to launch a new movement in Rio de Janeiro – the
Neoconcrete Movement. He was joined by prominent young
artists and writers: Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Amílcar
de Castro, Franz Weissmann, Reynaldo Jardim, Sergio Camargo
and Theon Spanudis. Gullar wrote the Neoconcrete Manifesto,
published during the I Exposição de Arte Neoconcreta.
The group advocated for a freer vision of art and language,
non-dogmatic, less rational, inspired by the ideas of Maurice
Merleau-Ponty, author of La Structure du Comportement (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1942) and Phénoménologie
de la Perception (Paris: Gallimard, 1945).
In the 60s, Gullar became involved in political activities
that would culminate with his exile. In 1964, on the day of
the military coup, he affiliated himself with the Communist
Party. In 1968, when the government reinforced political persecution
through the Institutional Act # 5, Gullar was arrested. A
dark time in his life began. He was constantly hiding,
moving from house to house, supported by his friends, away
from his wife and children. In 1971, he embarked on a long
trip through Uruguay, Argentina, and France until he reached
exile in Moscow. He was enrolled in a training camp
by the Soviet government – but was quickly disappointed
with Soviet methods, which he expressed in his memoir. He
moved back to South America and spent many years in Santiago,
Lima, and Buenos Aires. In Argentina, while having a nervous
breakdown, he wrote his most brilliant poem: “Poema
Sujo” (Dirty Poem), a book-size poem considered one
of the most emblematic poems of the Brazilian 20th Century.
It entered Brazil by the hands of Vinicius de Morais, who
carried it back in his luggage on audio tape – a tape
of Gullar reading the poem. It was an immediate success in
literary circles, where the tape was clandestinely heard.
In 1975, his next book Dentro da Noite Veloz,(Through the
Speeding Night) was published in Brazil. In 1977, Gullar returned
to Brazil and was arrested the day after his arrival. He was
interrogated and threatened for 72 hours, but luckily was
released. Afterward he reengaged in his normal literary and
professional work.
Other two books appeared in 1980, Na Vertigem do Dia (In the
Day’s Vertigo), of new poems, and Toda Poesia (All Poetry),
of selected work. During the 80s and 90s and until today he
has been writing and publishing poems, translations, essays,
and fiction. In 2000, his most recent book of poems, Muitas
Vozes (Many Voices), wan the Jabuti Prize, the most prestigious
literary prize in Brazil. That same year, he was also awarded
the Multicultural 2000 Prize, for his body of work.
Gullar’s portrait is one of striking beauty, not correct
beauty, but the wild, intriguing beauty of a survivor who
has struggled to dominate language, and who has lived his
life intensely: long white hair, deep dark eyes, wrinkled
thin face, strong sensual hands. Those are just the
external signs of a corporal fight – a luta corporal
he brought up to the world’s ring.
In this interview, I ask him to look at Latin American poetry
from an insider’s point of view. I also ask him his
thoughts on poetry and politics today.
—Flavia Rocha
1. Considering
the poetry written in 20th century Latin America, in your
opinion, is it possible to detect tendencies, movements, or
schools?
I am not an expert in this subject, but I see in Latin American
poetry of this century, some tendencies that are common to
some countries and others that are not, or that act with different
intensity. The 20th century begins with the progressive
abandon of rhymed and versified forms, favoring the adoption
of the free verse, while the content, symbols, and Parnassian
reminiscences start giving way to a less idealized view of
reality: everyday poetry is born. In Brazil, this is noticeable
since Modernism (1922) and even more in the 30s, when the
world economic crisis favors social themes. Nevertheless,
a metaphysical or mystical stream is also seen in poets like
Murilo Mendes and Jorge de Lima and even in the young Vinícius
de Moraes, opposite to the ironic “realism” of
Carlos Drummond de Andrade and the good humored lyricism of
Manuel Bandeira. In the midst of the 40s Brazilian poetry
goes back to the rhymed and versified forms, as if to indicate
an exhaustion of the modernist irreverence. In the following
decade, the concrete poetry movement breaks out partly as
a consequence of my book A Luta Corporal (The Corporal Fight)
(1954) in which the formal experiences destroy the discourse
and implode the language. Poetry is the attempt of realizing
the poem without the discourse, supported only by a visual
syntax. The neo-concrete movement moves these experiences
forward and creates the poem-book and the spatial poems. Other
movements of less significance were born from these two movements,
which soon lost strength, allowing the return to the discursive
poetry either prosaic or lyric to which, in a way, previous
poets have had recourse to, especially João Cabral
de Mello Neto, a poet who chose a kind of poetry born from
reason and extreme formal requirements. The most recent poets,
however, look for an autonomous, individual path, without
purposefully creating schools or movements.
2. Is it accurate to identify Latin American Poetry
as a genre, the way US publishers use to classify Hispanic
or Brazilian poetry?
The designation “Latin American Poetry” is evidently
a generalization that seems to ignore the diversity of the
poetry of Spanish speaking countries and even more of Brazil,
where Portuguese is the spoken language.
3. A few years ago I asked you if we were to include
only one of your poems in a Brazilian anthology which one
it should be, and you told me “Poema Sujo.”
Why “Poema Sujo?” Do you still consider
this to be, after all these years, your best poem?
I am very satisfied with the translation of Poema Sujo
(Dirty Poem), done by Leland Guyer. The critics usually consider
this poem to be the most important work of mine. It may be.
4. Neoconcrete poetry had an important role in a important
moment – in reaction to the concrete movement, which
was very influential in the 60s. At that time, how did you
look at concrete and neo-concrete poetry? How do you look
at these movements today?
As I said before, concrete poetry was probably a response
to an impasse through which Brazilian poetry was going when
the path initiated during Modernism was exhausted. I broke
apart with the fellows from São Paulo for considering
that their plans (to make poems out of mathematical equations)
were not viable and did not correspond to my conception of
what should be the new poetry. Later on, because of my own
searches, I headed to the construction of spatial poems that
required the reader’s participation. These poems –
which lead to neo-concrete poetry – were difficult to
be published, once they avoided the traditional literary forms.
They were shown in exhibitions of visual arts along the last
decades. When conceiving Poema Enterrado (Buried Poem) in
1960, I realized that that type of poetry did not allow me
to go very far, besides drastically limiting the verbal expression.
I believe it was a very original, innovative experience, to
which I may return sporadically.
5. The 20th Century generated great examples of politically
engaged poets around the world. What kind of relationship
should exist between poetry and militancy? Do you consider
yourself – at least in certain moments of your life
– an engaged poet? How do you see the poetry written
in Brazil during the dictatorship’s years?
I do not consider myself a political or engaged poet.
Because of historical circumstances – from 1962 on and
during the dictatorship – I felt the necessity of using
my poetry as an instrument of consciousness-raising and denunciation.
But I never stopped writing poems of lyric or existential
basis. As a matter of fact, I believe that poetry is my way
of thinking the world and inventing it.
6. The anthology Brazilian Poetry (Wesleyan University
Press, 1970), edited by Elizabeth Bishop and Emanuel Brasil
is well known in the United States. You were the youngest
poet they included in the anthology. Did you meet Bishop in
Brazil? Did you get to know contemporary American poets?
Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to meet
Elizabeth Bishop. I learned about the anthology when I was
exiled in Lima, Peru, in the beginning of 1974. I consider
Elizabeth Bishop to be one of the greatest expressions in
contemporary North American poetry but I am not aware of what
American poets are producing nowadays.
8. After the great poetry movements of the late 20th
century, are there new movements being created in Brazil?
As far as I am concerned there is no new poetic movement.
There is a new generation of quality poets who search for
their own path individually. But Brazil is huge, which makes
it difficult to know everything that is being written in the
different cities and regions.
9. Who are the great Brazilian poets of the 20th century?
The ones that are known as such: Mário and Oswald
de Andrade, Drummond, João Cabral, Bandeira, Murilo
Mendes, Jorge de Lima, Vinícius...
10. How do you see the political situation of the United States
today?
The United States carries the weight of being the biggest
economic and political power, with all the consequences arising
out of this. The capitalist system is in its essence a generator
of inequality, concentration of wealth, in the national level
as much as in the international, and the United States has
become today the most vivid expression of this, imposing its
interests and its will on other cultures. Not by accident
has there spread around the world a blind anti-Americanism
that ignores the extraordinary contribution from the North
Americans to contemporary civilization, in all fields of knowledge.
The attacks of September 11 – unacceptable in all senses
– have contributed to scare the American people and
to create a favorable space for warlike, or arbitrary, or
even anti-democratic initiatives. It is a difficult situation
that international terrorism contributes in making worse.
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