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
