fiama hasse pais brandão I (translation)

Portuguese literature lacks no female contributions; in fact, to every great female portuguese author, I can name an equally grand male counterpart, and this pairing game can go on for as long as there is a memory capable of absorbing that many names. None stands out, to me, as glowingly as Fiama. Born in 1938

to ethan 2

to ethan

poetry without a place 3

The second poem contains a translation from the latin Nulla in mundo pax sincera, from Vivaldi, though it isn’t entirely verifiable if he wrote it or just used it in his motet. Either way, that’s where I got it from.Nothing else to report. Happy traditional celebrations and thank you for reading,João-Maria.

(mysterium) – (poetry)

Strung together strangely from a restricted form, (mysterium) is to be part of three independent but thematically linked compositions illumed by the mystical phrase “Mysterium, tremendum et fascinans“, though I believe no unique part is to be distinguished by its focus, rather, to be analysed conically, which was a welcomed formal challenge. Echoes of antediluvian

three madrigals (poetry)

Inspired by a coalescence of Alice Oswald’s Severed Head Floating Downriver (and truly all of Falling Awake), John Ashbery‘s Three Madrigals, Herberto Helder‘s Servidões and Rilke‘s Death.Mostly an exercise in form, or trials of mathematising form. In fact, only the last of the madrigals has my formal signature. I have been finding it hard to

fragments III

There is some glory left in the fragmentary: it requires entirety and demands plenitude. Unlike the poem, which exists only in the fullness of itself, the fragmentary cannot overspill nor wound in outburst. It is a slow, percolated humiliation. It is not the Art of the Perpetual, but a manner of deconstructing the frigidity of

warhorses, as they sleep (poetry)

Rhythms can be hard to get out of one’s mind.

10, Outubro

I hope you’re doing well. School has recommenced for me and I’ve been tasked with an unprecedented flurry of obligatory readings, from books to papers to papers on books and books on papers. COVID-19 severely shortened the semester and one must toil to fit so much voluminous theory in such a thin amount of time.

ten, (poetry)

Nothing can be understood of tragedy; there is no realisation outside of the tragic. João-Maria.