Three poems of seeking

Abstract

These three poems reflect, each in its own manner, the idea of literature as encounter. In “A bússola”, we reflect upon the possibility that the poetic act or writing could be capable of establishing the encounter with the reader through the creation of a symbol. The poem, in search of this symbol, the proceeds to construct and deconstruct the image of a compass, and, insofar as it does that, could be said to belong to a certain tradition of “search poems”. In “O mesopotâmio”, the search for the encounter happens not in space, but in time. In “Se soubéssemos diríamos melhor”, we ask about the final pertinence of the act of writing in face of the reality of life itself, populated by a strange and diverse creature we tend to call “people”. In face of the inevitable finitude of experience, would there be more truth in writing, which lasts, or in saying, which vanishes? Formally, the three poems make use of the tools provided by the Brazilian modernist poem, either in its free-verse or polymetric form, seeking to apply them to a contemporary lexical and colloquial syntax.