Tag: Letria

Posted in English

O Verso Alcançando o Infinito

Posted on by Colin Lusk

*groan*

So ages ago, I heard Jose Jorge Letria (a poet who wrote, among other things,”Era Uma Vez Um Cravo”) read a poem called O Dia Mundial da Poesia. I mean, I thought it was called that. I thought he’d written it for world poetry day and he’d called it that because it was about poetry itself, where it comes from and how it’s made. And I spent ages looking for a printed copy because I liked it so much even though my listening skills were terrible and I could only make out about one line in five.

The poem is born of an impulse [… Blah blah blah… ] from the sonorous temptation of a metaphor [… Something something…] Afterwards, it’s writing, the work of hands on the incandescent material of syllables [… Tum ti tum…] The poem is born, finally, from the illusion that there is something left that hasn’t been said [… Etc… ]

I couldn’t catch it all. But I got enough to know I wanted more but I couldn’t find it anywhere online or in any of his books.

Anyway, as you’ve probably gathered by now, it’s not called O Dia Mundial da Poesia at all; it’s called O Verso Alcançando o Infinito. So that explains why I couldn’t find it. Anyway, now I know what to plug into Google, I’ve found another recording of it here…

And if you need the lyrics (I wish I’d had access to then five years ago!) they’re here. Well, some of them are. Another one for my project to learn poetry, I think!

Posted in Portuguese

É Tudo Uma Questão de Tempo – José Jorge Letria

Posted on by Colin Lusk

47586435_756354014698324_6635581299585187840_nMais uma tentativa de apreciar a poesia portuguesa… Gosto muito de José Jorge Letria desde ouvi um poema dele num podcast. Foi a primeira vez (e continua a ser quase a única vez!) que gostei de um poema português. Lamento que ainda falte paciência para ler poesia em qualquer língua, e o problema fica ainda pior quando tenho de alcançar o dicionário a cada 4 linhas! Mas de vez em quando uma luz penetra a escuridão da minha ignorância e consigo ver a beleza da escrita. Às vezes reli os poemas mais de uma vez para aumentar a experiência.

Posted in English

Orphans of Marx

Posted on by Colin Lusk

“Órfãos de Marx” from “É Tudo Uma Questão de Tempo” by José Jorge Letria

Orphans of Marx

(Roughly translated on the train)

We had never read Marx

But we talked as if we were heirs

Of the old German jew who wrote in London

The general theory of that vast utopia

That would finally make us

Fighters for the most generous of illusions:

The transformation of the world

In the end, what did we transform?

We believed that the books,

The murals and the closed fists

Opened doors to a better age.

Many gave up, others wound up owing to

Marxism the shattering revelation

Of their first great passion, fleeting and suffocating.

Sometimes we sat on the benches

Of the avenue named after Liberty

Drunk on dreams and purpose

And we even proselytised the sparrows and pigeons

For our romantic struggle.

And we discovered that among us

Were scoundrels and even worse,

Because its not the quality of the belief

That makes the quality of the believer

Now that my second grandchild

Is on the way and the first

Has the most beautiful smile in the world

I can’t shake off the mournful question:

Where did we go wrong? Who failed in our name?

What will I have to say to them

When they ask me: grandpa, was it you

In this picture, trying to change the world?

If I knew now where old Marx

Ended up, I would want to know

If it’s possible to reach happiness

Through the class struggle.

Posted in English, Portuguese

A Vida Nos Livros

Posted on by Colin Lusk

“A Vida No Livros” de José Jorge Letria – Tradução

Nem dez vidas me bastaram, eu sei

Ten lifetimes wouldn’t be enough, I know

para ler os livros que fui arrecadando

to read the books I’ve been collecting

e que me desafiam para que

and that challenge me because

me perca neles como um peregrino

I lose myself in them, like a pilgrim

nas rotas de um mitigado desespero.

on the trails of a muted despair

Sou eu que pertenço aos livros

It’s me that belongs to the books

e não o contrario, já o disse tantas vezes

and not the other way around, I’ve said it many times

pois o que eles vão entesourando

because the treasure they are hiding

é a pequenez do tempo que me resta

is the shortness of the time that remains to me

para os ler e neles me encontrar.

to read them and find myself in them

Os livros falam de vidas e de guerras

The books speak of lives and wars

e eu só falo do que os livros contam,

and I only talk about what the books tell me

esquecido que ando do que vivi

oblivious that I’m wandering from what I lived

e bem podia e devia contar-vos.

and can and should tell you

São os livros que me acenam

It’s the books that move me

apontando-me para os mostradores

pointing me to the faces

dos seus relógios imóveis e opacos,

of their motionless, opaque clocks

assim como quem diz: por mais que vivas,

as if they were saying: no matter how you live,

por mais que faças, tu partirás

no matter what you do, you will depart

e nós, bem ou mal, havemos de ficar,

and we, good or bad, have to stay

porque não nos cansámos de viver

because we never got tired of living

a ficção de que são feitas estas vidas.

the fiction from which these lives are made

Posted in English, Portuguese

Dia Mundial da Poesia

Posted on by Colin Lusk

jose_letriaVerso Alcançando o Infinito – Tradução

O poema nasce de um impulso,
The poem is born of an impulse
de uma febre, da tirania de uma miragem,
from a fever, from the tyranny of a mirage
da tentação sonora de uma metáfora,
from the sonorous temptation of a metaphor
do vazio que teme transformar-se em nada.
from the emptiness that fears becoming a void
Depois é a escrita, é o trabalho da mão
Then comes the writing, the work with the hand
sobre a matéria incandescente das sílabas.
on the incandescent material of syllables.
E, quando damos por nós, é de corpo inteiro
And when we discover ourselves, it’s the whole body
que estamos na fragilidade do poema
that we are in the fragility of the poem
como se tivéssemos ousado cavalgar numa nuvem
as if we had dared to ride on the back of a cloud
para desafiar todos os poderes do céu.
to challenge all the powers of heaven
Quem ousará explicar este sortilégio?
Who dares explain this sorcery?
Nem sequer os deuses, pois esses
Not even the gods, because they
nasceram da própria erupção do verbo,
were born in their own verbal eruption
da explosão da prece fingindo ser capaz
from the explosion of prayer that claims to be capable
de vencer o sofrimento e o assombro.
of conquering suffering and dread.
O poema nasce, afinal, da ilusão
The poem is born, after all, from the illusion
de que ainda resta algo para ser dito
that there still remains something to be said
e de que o silêncio é um cativeiro fugaz
and that silence is a brief captivity
em que as palavras se amotinam
in which the words rebel
para de novo voltarem a ser voz.
to return to being a voice again.

José Jorge Letria, O Livro Branco da Melancolia (2001)