Mimosa Pudica – How a Poem by João Cabral de Melo Neto Embarked Me on Time Travel

I am not a fan of João Cabral de Melo Neto, the Brazilian poet and diplomat who redefined Brazilian modernism. He is most of the most influential writers of modern Brazil, based on the use of simple language to turn poetry into a structural edifice of deliberate and meticulous attention. Yes, he is a most influential poet, but somehow not the sensual expresser of words that touch me in the most unexpected moment. Poetry for me has to give the feeling of effortless allure or destructive pain, rather than the oblique reality of straight lines.

Well, the reason I started this essay with De Melo Neto is because a friend sent me a poem of the late poet, translated by Djelal Kadir of the University of Oklahoma, saying:

“You and I do not talk about our previous lives as researchers anymore. Perhaps it is pudor, perhaps a deliberate dissociation. But you may see that the poet you sometimes talked about has also had such struggles.”

I met my friend in Saō Paulo decades ago. We were doing a study of the prevalence of Caesarean section  deliveries in Brazil, and he was one of the local expert obstetricians. Years later, we have both retired from that life and now we correspond about arts and our one-way journey left ahead of us.

I was pleased he sent the bilingual version of the poem as while I can manage reading the Portuguese used in Portugal, I am hopeless in trying to guess how it is used in Brazil.

So, here is the poem and its translation:

I have always avoided speaking of me,                                                        Sempre evitei falar de mim,

Speaking myself. I wanted to speak of things.                                              falar-me. Quis falar de coisas,

But, in the selection of those things,                                                            Mas na seleḉão dessas coisas

Might there not be a speaking of me?                                                          não haverá um falar de mim?

Might that modesty of speaking myself                                                        Não haverá nesse pidor

Not contain a confession,                                                                             de falar-me uma confissão

An oblique confession,                                                                                  uma indireta confissão,

In reverse and ever immodest?                                                                      pelo avesso, e sempre impudor?

How pure or impure                                                                                      A coisa de que se falar

Is the thing spoken of?                                                                                  até onde está pura ou impura?

Or does it always impose itself, impurely                                                     ou sempre se impōe, mesmo impura-

Even, on anyone wishing to speak of it?                                                       mente, a quem dela quer falar?

How is one to know, with so many things                                                     Como saber, se há tanta coisa

To speak or not to speak of?                                                                         de que falar ou não falar?

And if the avoidance of speech                                                                     E se o evitá-la, o não falar,

Itself be a way of speaking of things?                                                           é forma de falar da coisa?                  

My friend explained why he was sending this poem:

“You recall the often capricious non-medical reasons we were given for the frequent use of Caesaren section in Brazil, yes? Well, one of them was that there will be no need for a pudendal bloc to anesthetize the area around the vagina helping the passage of the baby’s head.  This poem uses the word pidor  or pudic which is the origin of pudendal. It is Latin for genitalia, but also means shameful.”

Ha! Pudic is an archaic word now but immediately made me think of Mimosa Pudica, a plant that closes itself (in shyness and modesty?) when touched.  I smiled as I thought about that reaction and the name given to it by Carl Linnaeus during his sexual taxonomy of plants.  Upon external stimuli like touch, the cells of the plant which are filled with water proceed to an exchange of ions that leads to loss of hydrostatic pressure and the collapse of the leaves. Hence the pudic behavior of the plant. With time the ionic balance is restored and the leaves re-acquire turgidity (turgor pressure) and reopen.

So, when touched the plant become flaccid. Of course in the animal kingdom, when genitalia are touched they become turgid and fluid filled.

Which one is the pudic or shy behavior?

Of course that is not what the poem of De Melo Neto is all about. It is about the modesty of an introvert asking questions that are linear and require linear answers. That is why his use of language is compared to an architect’s work. And for that very reason he stated that:

“A poesia não é fruto de inspiração em razão do sentimento”, mas o “fruto do trabalho paciente e lúcido do poeta”

(Poetry is not the product of inspiration triggered by feeling, but the product of the poet's patient and lucid work.)

Perhaps that is why I understand Fernando Pessoa most effortlessly when reading poetry in Portuguese…

November 24, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019