10 brilliant poems by Ferreira Gullar

Ferreira Gullar (1930-2016) is one of the two greatest names in Brazilian literature.

O expoente da geração concretista and author of verses that spanned decades and portrayed a lot of the Brazilian political and social situation.

He now reads his spectacular compositions.

1. Sujo Poem

What does it matter to me at this time of night in São Luís do
Maranhão at the table to enjoy in the light of February between irmãos
In the country in which an enigma?
more than it matters um nome
debaixo deste teto de telhas incarnate beams to show between
cadeiras and table between a cristaleira and a armário before
garfos e facas e pratos louça that broke já

O stretch to the top part of the do Sujo poem, an extensive poem written when Ferreira Gullar was not in exile, in Argentina, for political reasons.

It was in the year 1976 and Brazil lived the years of chumbo, or an assistian poet from longe to unhappy that passed away from his country when he compiled his work-prima, or Sujo Poem, um creation with more than two thousand verses.

Long year of written or eu-lyrical discourse on a solidão and on a importance of freedom, sentiments in consonance as Ferreira Gullar passed as his own at the time.

These first verses from the story of the poet: a city of birth, a house that you shelter, a landscape of São Luís, a family structure. This thought will unfold into a series of identity and political concerns, moving to composition individual eu for or collective us.

Find out an in-depth analysis of Sujo Poem.

2. Homem comum

Sou um homem comum
of meat and of memory
of osso e esquecimento.
I go to pé, by bus, by taxi, by plane
the life sopra inside of me
panic
feito a chama de um maçarico
e can
suddenly
cease.

Sou as you
feito de coisas lembradas
e skecid
rostos e
mine, or sun-guard vermelho ao mid-day
in Pastos-Bons,
deceased joys flowers passarinhos
luminous evening face
just that ha nem sei

O little poetic subject Homem comum (acima stretch) tries to identify itself and by isso vai em look for your identity.

During the journey of discovery, the map percursos materiais (represented by the flesh) and imateriais (symbolized by the memory). O subject, then he appears as result of experiences that live.

Here or eu-lyrical the universe do leitor approaches ("I am like a little voice of lembrada and skewed coisas") demonstrating partilhar with everyday experiences ("I'm going to get, from bus, from taxi, from plane") and especially human concerns, transverse to all us.

3. Translatezir-se

A part of mim
é all world:
Another part is none:
fund sem fund.

A part of mim
é multidão:
another strange part
e solidão.

A part of mim
weighs, weights:
another part delirious.

A part of mim
almoça e janta:
another part
is scared.

A part of mim
é permanent:
another part
is suddenly known.

A part of mim
é só vertigem:
another part,
linguagem.

Translate a part
na other part
- what a questão
of life or death -
will it be art?

O poem written em primeira pessoa aims to promote uma deep reflection on the subjectivity of the artist. We see here a search for self-awareness, an effort to unveil or interior the complexities of the poetic subject.

Convém sublinhar that it is not about the relationship of the poet with the same as also with all the others who are at his turn.

The verses, succinct, carry a dry linguagem, sem great detours, and the objective of investigating here is what the eu-lyrical carries within itself.

Fagner did not start two years eighty, music or poem Translatezir-se The date of the title of the poem also or the title of this album, released in 1981.

4. No world has many armadilhas

No world has many armadilhas
e o que é armadilha can be a refuge
e o que é refuge could be armadilha

Tua janela for example
open for o ceu
e uma star to tell you that o homeme is nothing
ou a manhã foaming na praia
a drummer before Cabral, before Troia
(has four secles Tomás Bequimão
Tomou a city, criou a popular militia
e depois was brought, imprisoned, enforced)

No world has many armadilhas
and many mouths to tell you
that life is little
what life is louca
And why not a Bomba? I ask you.
Why not a Bomba to finish com tudo, what a life and louca?

Os verses acima compõem or initial stretch do longo poem No world has many armadilhas.

A written trace uma reflection on being in the world The challenges that this imersão represents both for the poetic subject and for the reader.

Ao falar de si, o eu-lrico ends up falar a little of each um de nós instigating or nosso critical thinking. Long of looking at apathetic readers, Gullar tries to deixar-us restless and in a state of alert, questioning the world to or us redor.

5. Uma aerial photography

Eu devo ter ouvido that afternoon
um avião passar over a city
open like palma da mão
between palmeiras
e mangues
vagando no mar o sangue de seus rios
as hours
tropical day
that afternoon emptying seus esgotos seus mortos
seus jardins
eu devo ter ouvido
that afternoon
em meu fourth?
na room? no terraço
to the side of the quintal?
or plane pass over to the city

Os verses acima compõem or initial stretch of Uma aerial photography. Nesse belo poem or poetic subject is debruça on to its origin in São Luís do Maranhão.

A written premise is quite original: it has passed from a date to a date or a record of the region where the birth or poet is born. Did you see what time or did you pass? Or what has been registered in the lens? Or what poet would be remembered from the image or what would change qualquer representation?

In a more generic way, or poem raises the following dúvidas: or that a photograph is capable of capturing? Are you affected by emotional experiences, are you capable of ficarem registered in an image?

6. Like dois e dois são quatro

Like dois e dois são quatro
I know that life is worth it
embora or pão seja expensive
e a little freedom

Like teus olhos são clara
e a tua pele, brunette

like blue or ocean
e a lagoa, serena

like a tempo of joy
because of the terror it aches me

e a noite carrega o dia
no seu colo de açucena

- sei que dois e dois são quatro
I know that life is worth it

same as it is expensive
e a freedom, little one.

Or brief Like dois e dois são quatro é um poem com um social and political tom, also like a huge plot of Gullar's lyrics.

It is worth mentioning that the writer was exiled during the dictatorship precisely for raising questions about repression and for fighting against ideological freedom. Responsive and provocative, I want to know the limits of freedom and constraints of life in society, as well as compõe Like dois e dois são quatro.

Despite dealing with hard topics and dense questions, the poem ends up as a solar and otimistic olhar.

7. Loss

Where do I come, where do I finish,
I know that this outside is inside
as num circle cuja
periphery or center?

I am scattered around the corners,
no weight, no drawers:
suddenly i found ali
parts of mim: risos, vertebrae.

Estou flawless nas nuvens:
old man from high to city
e in every corner um menino,
that sou eu mesmo, a chamar-me.

Missing me no tempo.
Where will my pieces be?

The verses acima foram withdrawn from the initial stretch of the poem Loss. Here we find a poetic subject seeking himself, trying to understand How did you become here?. For this, he seeks to discover the traces of his past, in search of clues of the generation of maturity.

O eu-lrico accredits that he placed a magnifying glass on or on his course (how he related to, the feelings he lived in, The places by where you passou) will get to perceive melhor here that is at the point of lidar melhor with him and how he is ao redor.

8. May 1964

Na leiteria to afternoon is distributed
em iogurtes, coalhadas, flakes
of leite
I do not spell my face. São
four hours late, em maio.

I am 33 years old and a gastrite. Love
to life
que é cheia de crianças, de flores
and women, to life,
esse direito to be no world,
Ter two pés e mãos, uma cara
e a fome de tudo, a Esperanza.
Esse direito from all
what nenhum do I tie
institutional or constitutional
can cassar or bequeath.

More than many friends in prison!
how many in shady prisons
wave to afternoon fede to urina and terror.

From the title of the poem we can see what it will be or its subject: a military position that I interrupted the life of Ferreira Gullar, as well as a run over and suspended the plans of a series of others Brazilians.

Nesse is a hard autobiographical poem (we can only find a way), we read repression, censorship and the harsh consequences experienced during the years of Chumbo. Ao escort to the subject, Gullar intends keep alive the collective memory or what formed those years of terror and the media.

Enquanto o half approaches two ways that disagree with the regime, other so many mantinham to their daily routine "em iogurtes, coalhadas, flakes de leite" are great on high.

Or eu-lrico, for the time, with 33 years, assists or rumored from an indignant country and with desire to move. Hopefully, he claims that everyone fears that "no institutional or constitutional act can marry or bequeath."

9. Cantiga para não morrer

When you speak for yourself,
moça branca as a neve,
light me.

Is it possible that you are not possa
load me pela mão,
menina branca de neve,
I light not heart.

I know no heart, no possa
just by chance
moça de sonho e de neve,
I do not feel light.

E se aí também no possa
for so much coisa that slight
ha live in your thoughts,
menina branca de neve,
I do not think it is light.

Cantiga para não morrer é um two little love poems by Ferreira Gullar, which costuma ter a lyrical more turned for sociais and collective questões. Our verses acima, not entanto, or poetic subject is debruça on or sentimento da paixão.

Or eu-lyrical find-surrender to a sensation of falling in love provoked by the "moça branca de neve". We do not know knowing more about the woman, além da cor da su pele, the description of the poet is seals more unaffected than properly not alvo de amor.

Ao contrarário largely two poems that have a declaration, that is not a seal I did not find, but at the same time that a loved one decides to leave. Or dull, I know how to regulate in this situation, I just need it or light it in some way.

In 1984 or poem was set to music and released by Fagner, confira or result below:

10. To poetry

Where is it
to poetry? inquire
everywhere. E to poetry
vai à corner buy daily.

Scientists esquartejam Púchkin e Baudelaire.
Exegetes dismantling by machine from linguagem.
He laughed at poetry.

Baixa-se uma portaria: é prohibited
mix or poem with Ipanema.
O poet depõe not inquérito:
my poem is pure, flower
Sem up, I swear!
I am not in the past and in the future.
He doesn't taste like fel, he doesn't taste like mel:
é made of paper.

Já not first stretch of To poetry It is possible to observe that it is about um metapoem, a creation that investigates the origin of verse and tries to understand the place of the lyrical not the world.

O poetic subject wishes to discover não só so that it can serve poetry as what is or seu space, to which place it belongs, in what way it can differentiate our days.

It is not just a question of discovering where the lyric sprouts, but also of investigating its motivation and its capacity for social transformation.

Quem foi Ferreira Gullar

José de Ribamar Ferreira came to know no universe of literature just like Ferreira Gullar. Or writer born in São Luís do Maranhão, dating from 1930.

At the age of 18 he launched or seu first book of poetry entitled Um little acima do chão. As a young man, he decided to leave the interior for Rio de Janeiro, where he established himself in 1951 and became a reviewer of the O Cruzeiro magazine.

Ferreira Gullar foi two great names of concrete and neo-concrete poetry in Brazil. Seu livro Luta Corporal (1954), já trazia sinais gives her concrete experience of him. Two years later he participated in the first exhibition of Concrete Poetry.

He continued to grow over the course of decades, especially not poetic genre in the theme of social quests. He also redigued for theater and novel compositions.

During his military service he went into exile in France, not Chile, not Peru and Argentina. That desse era or classic Sujo Poem. Give a famous phrase:

Art exists because life is not enough.

Awards received

In 2007 Gullar received a Jabuti prize in the Melhor Livro de Ficção category. Four years later, Façanha was repeated as the same award, more recently in the poetry category.

In 2010 he was awarded as an important Prêmio Camões. Nesse same year he received or title of Honoris Causa offered by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

In 2014 he was elected to occupy a place in the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Ferreira Gullar died on December 4, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.

Conheça also

• Fundamental Brazilian poets
• Poems by Carlos Drummond de Andrade
• You will remember the poems of Manuel Bandeira
• Children's poems for readers of all ages
• Poems to understand concrete poetry