Translations: Poetry: Francisco Alvim

Francisco Alvim (Photo: Bel Pedroso)

Recently I was reading poet Francisco Alvim's (b. Araxá, Brazil, 1938-) Poemas (1968-2000) (São Paulo: Cosac & Naify, 2004), a volume that showcases this deceptively straightforward, playful, gifted writer at his best, and thought that I would post a few of his poems, both in the original Portuguese and in English, to give J's Theater readers a sense of his work.

Also known as Chico Alvim, he began publishing in the late 1960s, and in the early 70s published the work of several fellow poets (Cacaso, Roberto Schwarz, Geraldo Carneiro, João Carlos Padua), some whom would, with other poets such as Ana Cristina César, come to be known as the Poetas marginais (Marginal Poets). Alvim, like a number of Brazil's important writers, has worked as a diplomat, and continues to write and publish his work.

You can find some of it, in translation by Sérgio Bessa, in Bomb's Brazil issue (Volume 102, Winter 2008), which also featured Bessa's interview with Alvim. From that conversation:

Alvim: What I found in Eliot and Pound was a voice coming from a new, crushed subjectivity, which had already emerged, splendidly and movingly, in Baudelaire. My feeling is that, in our time, this subjectivity became manifest in poetry in two ways: via material things, of the thing-thing and the word-thing, and via man. “Via” here is meant as channel, as in voice, or speech, and of course writing. Via man, it became pluralistic and fragmented, because today man is a being without individuality, and the world, a reality imploded into a thousand fragments. Thus the shrapnel of voice, voice which is also, above all, a desperate attempt—inexorably failed—to hear itself and the other’s voice.

And now, several poems, one of which, "En la calle," is originally in Spanish:

VAMPIRE

Nocturnal body

with your vicious moons

you wake unholy desire

you murder time

understanding

you hover

over my destiny

your dark circles beneath the eyes

your veins

you my body

my poor pathetic body

that you use to blot out the sun

you bring dark cravings

that lead you to the corrupt

to death—

mirror in which I see myself:

dereliction's obscure vessel

VAMPIRO

Corpo noturno

com tuas luas viciosas

acordas o desejo impuro

apunhalas o tiempo

o entendimento

debruças

sobre meu destino

tuas olheiras e veias

Tu meu corpo

meu pobre corpo soturno

que apagas o sol

trazes o escuro desejo

que te conduz ao corrupto

e à morte –

espelho em que me vejo:

jarro obscuro do abandono

***

CARNIVAL

Sun

This water is a desert

The world, a fantasy

The sea, its eyes wide open

devouring blue

Which is the real poetry

CARNAVAL

Sol

Esta água é um deserto

O mundo, uma fantasia

O mar, de olhos abertos

engolindo-se azul

Qual o real da poesia

***

HOMAGE TO OSWALD

Marching bands

perform the national symphony

at the foot of the strident banner

The Ministers drill down

In the blue boutonnière

the spirit of the public flickers

HOMMAGE À OSWALD

Bandas marciais

executam a sinfonia da pátria

ao pé do lábaro estridente

Os Ministérios verrumam

Na boutonnière do azul

cintila o espírito público

***

IN THE STREET

the ass

the finger

EN LA CALLE

el culo

el dedo

***

AUTHORITY

Where the law creates no obstacles

I lay down labyrinths

AUTORIDADE

Onde a lei não cria obstáculos

coloco labirintos

Copyright © Francisco Alvim, from Poemas (1968-2000), São Paulo: Cosac & Naify, 2004.