em partes

o todo
que parte
de tudo
que parte
do nada
que parte

em parte

de todos

Copyright © 2007 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

Really (im)possible ? ! ?

“The real is not impossible; on the contrary, within the real everything is possible, everything becomes possible. . . . Revolutionaries, artists, and seers are content to be objective, merely objective: they know that desire clasps life in its powerfully productive embrace, and reproduces it in a way that is all the more intense because it has few needs. And never mind those who believe that this is very easy to say, or that it is the sort of idea to be found in books.”

(Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus.)

Who speaks ? ! ?

“. . . we must henceforth ask ourselves what language must be in order to structure in this way what is nevertheless not in itself either word or discourse, and in order to articulate itself on the pure forms of knowledge. By a much longer and much more unexpected path, we are led back to the place that Nietzsche and Mallarmé signposted when the first asked: Who speaks?, and the second saw his glittering answer in the Word itself. The question as to what language is in its being is once more of the greatest urgency.”

“. . . the question of language is entrusted to that form of speech which has no doubt never ceased to pose it. That literature in our day is fascinated by the being of language is neither the sign of an imminent end nor proof of a radicalization: it is a phenomenon whose necessity has its roots in a vast configuration in which the whole structure of our thought and our knowledge is traced. . . . From within language experienced and traversed as language, in the play of its possibilities extended to their furthest point, what emerges is that man has ‘come to an end’, and that, by reaching the summit of all possible speech, he arrives not at the very heart of himself but at the brink of that which limits him; in that region where death prowls, where thought is extinguished, where the promise of the origin interminably recedes.”

(Michel Foucault, “Psychoanalysis and Ethnology.” The Order of Things.)

On nonbecoming a writer . . .

“the writing of our day has freed itself from the necessity of ‘expression’; it only refers to itself, yet it is not restricted to the confines of interiority. On the contrary, we recognize it in its exterior deployment. This reversal transforms writing into an interplay of signs, regulated less by the content it signifies than by the very nature of the signifier. Moreover, it implies an action that is always testing the limits of its regularity, transgressing and reversing an order that it accepts and manipulates. Writing unfolds like a game that inevitably moves beyond its own rules and finally leaves them behind. Thus, the essential basis of this writing is not the exalted emotions related to the act of composition or the insertion of a subject into language. Rather, it is primarily concerned with creating an opening where the writing subject endlessly disappears.”

(Michel Foucault, “What is an Author?”)

Confessions . . .

“I am commencing an undertaking, hitherto without precedent and which will never find an imitator. I desire to set before my fellows the likeness of a man in all the truth of nature, and that man myself.

Myself alone! I know the feelings of my heart, and I know men. I am not made like any of those I have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different. Whether Nature has acted rightly or wrongly in destroying the mould in which she has cast me, can only be decided after I have been read.”

(Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions.)

Pessoa(s) . . .

Autopsicografia*

O poeta é um fingidor.
Finge tão completamente
Que chega a fingir que é dor
A dor que deveras sente.

E os que lêem o que escreve,
Na dor lida sentem bem,
Não as duas que ele teve,
Mas só que éles não têm.

E assim nas calhas de roda
Gira, a entreter a razão,
Ésse comboio de corda
Que se chama o coração.

—Fernando Pessoa

Autopersonagraphy

The poet is a make-believer.
He makes his pain so real
That he makes a believer
Believe what he really feels.

And he who takes his word
Feels taken by his grief,
Not for believing the absurd,
But for believing in disbelief.

And so tears of laughter
Cry with reason in the heart,
For now and forever after,
Of a master and his art.

– gringocarioca

*See 13 English translations of the poem at http://www.disquiet.com/thirteen.html

Oswaldianos . . .

Crônica

Era uma vez
O mundo

– Oswald de Andrade

Chronicle

Once upon a time
The world

– gringocarioca

Drummondianos I . . .

No meio do caminho

No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra
tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
tinha uma pedra
no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.

Nunca me esquecerei desse acontecimento
na vida de minhas retinas tão fatigadas.
Nunca me esquecerei que no meio do caminho
tinha uma pedra
tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

In the Way

There was something in the way
in the way there was something
in the way
there was something in the way

I shall never forget this experience
For the life of my tired, weary eyes
I shall never forget there was something
in the way
in the way there was something
there was something in the way

gringocarioca

Drummondianos II . . .

A verdade dividida

A porta da verdade estava aberta
mas só deixava passar
meia pessoa de cada vez.

Assim não era possível atingir toda a verdade,
porque a meia pessoa que entrava
só conseguia o perfil de meia verdade.
E sua segunda metade
voltava igualmente com meio perfil.
E os meios perfis não coincidiam.

Arrebentaram a porta. Derrubaram a porta.
Chegaram ao lugar luminoso
onde a verdade esplendia os seus fogos.
Era dividida em duas metades
diferentes uma da outra.

Chegou-se a discutir qual a metade mais bela.
Nenhuma das duas era perfeitamente bela.
E era preciso optar. Cada um optou
conforme seu capricho, sua ilusão, sua miopia.

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Divided Truth

The door of truth was open
but only half a person
was able to pass through at a time.

So it was not possible to attain the whole truth,
because the half a person who entered
only got half a side of truth.
And his other half
returned equally with half a truth.
And the half sides did not coincide.

They banged on the door. They knocked the door down.
They arrived at the luminous place
where truth shone its splendid fires.
It was divided into two halves
each different from the other.

They argued over which side was more beautiful.
Neither of the two was perfectly beautiful.
And it was necessary to choose. Each one chose
according to his whim, his illusion, his blindness.

gringocarioca

A asa ritmada / The Wings of Rhythm . . .

Motivo

Eu canto porque o instante existe
e a minha vida está completa.
Não sou alegre nem sou triste:
sou poeta.

Irmão das coisas fugidias,
não sinto gozo nem tormento.
Atravesso noites e dias
no vento.

Se desmorono ou se edifico,
se permaneço ou me desfaço,
- não sei, não sei. Não sei se fico
ou passo.

Sei que canto. E a canção é tudo.
Tem sangue eterno a asa ritmada.
E um dia sei que estarei mudo:
- mais nada.

Cecília Meireles

Motive

I sing for the moment
and my life is now complete.
I’m neither restless nor content:
I’m a poet.

Brother of ephemeral flights,
I don’t feel effort or ease.
I pass the days and nights
in a breeze.

To work or to play,
to hide or to show,
– I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know whether to stay
or to go.

I know that I sing. And the song is all one.
The wings of rhythm fly forevermore.
And one day I know I’ll be done:
– nothing more.

gringocarioca

by the way

. . . here
I am still,
on the way,
a long way
along the way;
by the way,
on the way,
a long way
along the way,
there I am
still . . .

Copyright © 2007 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

Post-Avant

I have nothing to say here.

There! I have said it all . . .

Copyright © 2007 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira