Brazilian mystic poet Adélia Prado visited Smith College this week to share her work and thoughts with us. She gave a reading of her poetry – collaboratively with her translator, Smith professor Ellen Doré Watson – and two question and answer sessions about her work.
She spoke in Portuguese and I translated on the fly, so unfortunately I can’t offer exact quotes, but I’ve included close paraphrases of some of her words about poetry here.
Beautifully, Prado says she knows when a poem is finished when she sees that it’s larger than she is. For me, I love the way her idea contrasts to and builds on Yeats, who said a finished poem will “come shut with a click, like a closing box.” Yeats’ notion is a constraining one – Prado’s, a broadening; both, I think, are useful to poetry.
Prado also compared poetry to other arts, especially painting, which she called the art most similar to poetry. She said that the core of all the arts, is, in fact, poesia – the internal poetic center that drives the power of the artwork.
One student inquired whether this center of poetry is absolute, objective, or whether art is perceived subjectively and differently by different people. I found Adélia’s reply especially wise:
All poetry, all art, she said, has a center of poetry that is a real center – um centro verdadeiro – an absolute center. But “I”, the individual, as an individual, may or may not be able to perceive this center. People may not be able to enter a piece of art, she added, not necessarily because of a lack of sensitivity or sensibility but because of pride. This pride is an intellectual pride, she said – a desire to understand intellectually, rather than through feeling.
“Everything is the house of poetry,” she said: potatoes, washing clothes, mountains, rain, death. She reminded her audience that people tend to label her the poet of the quotidian, of daily life – even, she said, of the kitchen.
Finally, Prado, whose poetry is deeply influenced by her Catholicism, discussed the connection between faith and poetry, but left the idea wide open for people of all persuasions. Poetry, she said, is a fundamentally religious experience because it connects us to a center of significance and order that is larger than ourselves.
A poem by Prado, to close.
| O Poeta Ficou Cansado
Adélia Prado Pois não quero mais ser Teu arauto. |
The Poet Wearies
Adélia Prado I’ve had it with being Your herald. tr. Ellen Doré Watson |