Salgado Maranha?o: Poetry and Resistance

Abstract

Blood of the Sun introduces English-speaking audiences to the work of one of the outstanding contemporary poets from Brazil, Salgado Maranha?o. An Apollonian poet in the tradition of Drummond, Cabral and Faustino, Salgado relies on a highly crafted poetic diction, whose idiosyncrasies are preserved in Alexis Levitin’s wonderful translation. But Salgado’s poetry is not primarily about language games. There is a correlation between Salgado’s intricate syntax and imagery and the poet’s readiness to delve into the deepest and most paradoxical layers of being, in a never-ending struggle with the mystery of human existence in an often-indifferent world. For the poet, literature occupies a liminal space, a threshold of possibility pointing to a new, transformative consciousness about the world, which calls into question binaries such as body and spirit, and resists social practices that have led to historical forms of oppression.