Education by Stone
Selected Poems
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"João Cabral de Melo Neto is one of Brazil's most acclaimed poets . . . From his early days, Mr. Cabral has written poems that are marked by a captivating use of simple language."--New York Times Book Review
Disdaining personal revelation and sentimental vision, the poems of João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999) present squalor, desperation and injustice without comment or obvious compassion. Other poems pay homage to such subjects as chewing gum and aspirin. What interests Cabral, as he remarked in his acceptance speech for the 1992 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, is "the exploration of the materiality of words," the "rigorous construction of . . . lucid objects of language." His poetry, hard as stone and light as air, is like no other.
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Reviews
The compressed wry clarities of this great poet find an active voice in these exceptionally perceptive translations. It matters that one understand "the original" beyond the seeming simplicity of its words. Richard Zenith does, altogether. --Robert Creeley
This superb selection of João Cabral de Melo Neto's poems is indeed, in the words of the title, an "Education by Stone." Like Francis Ponge and William Carlos Williams, Cabral is a poet of thingness; he observes the seemingly trivial and intransigent, transforming "stone" into something rich, strange--and often very sexy. Richard Zenith's excellent translation captures Cabral's unique--and surprising--poetic landscape in all its nuances and thus provides new access to a major Brazilian poet. --Marjorie Perloff
João Cabral de Melo Neto is one of Brazil's most acclaimed poets . . . From his early days, Mr. Cabral has written poems that are marked by a captivating use of simple language. Avoiding ceremony and circumstance, they follow centuries-old paths rather than struggle to break new ground. --NY Times Book Review
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