Synopses & Reviews
"Joo Cabral de Melo Neto is one of Brazil's most acclaimed poets . . . From his early days, Mr. Cabral has written poems that are marked by a captivating use of simple language."-
New York Times Book ReviewDisdaining personal revelation and sentimental vision, the poems of Joo Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999) present squalor, desperation and injustice without comment or obvious compassion. Other poems pay homage to such subjects as chewing gum and aspirin. What interests Cabral, as he remarked in his acceptance speech for the 1992 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, is "the exploration of the materiality of words,"the "rigorous construction of . . . lucid objects of language."His poetry, hard as stone and light as air, is like no other.
Review
"João Cabral de Melo Neto is one of Brazil's most acclaimed poets....From his early days, Mr. Cabral has written poems that are marked by a captivating use of simple language." New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
Disdaining personal revelation and sentimental vision, the poems of João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999) present squalor, desperation and injustice without comment or obvious compassion. Other poems pay homage to such subjects as chewing gum and aspirin. What interests Cabral, as he remarked in his acceptance speech for the 1992 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, is the exploration of the materiality of words, the rigorous construction of...lucid objects of language. His poetry, hard as stone and light as air, is like no other.
Synopsis
Perhaps the single most important Brazilian poet of the 20th century. Same vein as Wallace Stevens and James Merrill.
Synopsis
Imagine making poems the way an architect designs buildings or an engineer builds bridges. Such was the ambition of João Cabral de Melo Neto. Though a great admirer of the thing-rich poetries of Francis Ponge and of Marianne Moore, what interested him even more, as he remarked in his acceptance speech for the 1992 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, was "the exploration of the materiality of words," the "rigorous construction of (. . .) lucid objects of language." His poetry, hard as stone and light as air, is like no other.
About the Author
João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999) was born and raised in northeastern Brazil, whose arid landscape and severe poverty became the setting and subject matter for some of his greatest poems. A career diplomat, he lived for many years in Spain, the other geographical pole around which his poetry flourished. Numerous national and international prizes were awarded to João Cabral, one of the most original poets of the 20th century.
Richard Zeniths translations from the Portuguese include works by António Lobo Antunes and Fernando Pessoa. His Fernando Pessoa & Co.: Selected Poems won the 1999 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, and his new version of Pessoas The Books of Disquiet (Penguin) was awarded the 2002 Calouste Gulbenkian Translation Prize. Zenith is the author of Terceiras Pessoas and has published his poetry in literary reviews. He lives in Lisbon.