IN LOVE WITH LISBON

I’m currently reading The Surprise of Being which is a collection of poems by Fernando Pessoa. I wasn’t sure what to expect and I am ashamed to say it’s been a good few years since I settled down to read some poetry. During my degree years, my favourite writers were the romantics: Wordsworth, Shelley and Blake. I like poetry that makes me think and which has an edge of darkness to it.

This collection of Pessoa’s work seems to me to paint a picture of someone who spend much of his life questioning who he was and what others thought him to be. There is certainly the element of the ’suffering poet’ etched within his words. That said, I cannot possibly think of him as ‘miserable’ because there are such flashes of inspiration and delicate beauty. There is sadness and perhaps a hint of saudade. Reading Pessoa is like walking into another’s dream and seeing the landscape they built with their thoughts, only to watch it shift into a place you almost recognise. It’s like deju-vu on a rainy day and curiously recognising a stranger.

Here is my favourite poem so far.

O que me dói não é
O que há no coração
Mas essas coisas lindas
Que nunca existirão…

São as formas sem forma
Que passam sem que a dor
As possa conhecer
Ou as sonhar o amor.

São como se a tristeza
Fosse árvore e uma a uma,
Caíssem suas folhas
Entre o vestígio e a bruma

What hurts me is not
What is in the heart
But those beautiful things
Which will never be.

They are the forms without form
That go by without pain
Being able to know
Or love to dream them

They are as if sadness
Were a tree and one by one,
Its leaves were falling
Between the trace and the mist. 

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Words Without Borders is an online magazine dedicated to literature from around the world. Their aim is to make people aware of the enormous variety of international writing by translating those works and making them available to everyone through promotion and publishing. It’s a terrific site where you could quite easily lose a few days by reading the vast amount of material posted there.

Their current issue features writing from the Portuguese world spanning Portugal, Africa and Brazil. You’ll find excerpts of books, poetry and interviews. I love the poem by Manoel De Barros and I am listening to a mix by DJ Spooky who is also featured on the site.  There is also a delightful piece by Teolinda Gersão called “The Woman Who Stole the Rain” which is beautifully written.

Take a look - Words Without Borders

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