Seven Brazilian Poets: Cecília Meireles, Torquato Neto, Waly Salomão, Paulo Leminski, Antonio Cicero, Maria Ester Maciel, Adriano Espínola

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Charles A. Perrone

Abstract

Music and Poetry in Brazil: Ever since the Portuguese established themselves in the New World in the early sixteenth century, versemaking has been associated with musical expression. The most prominent Baroque poet, Gregório de Matos, was also an accomplished troubadour. Numerous Romantic poets also penned song texts for national composers, as did several poets of the Modernist period. In the nineteen-sixties and beyond, a whole series of songwriters were known as poet-composers, like Bob Dylan in the USA, and numerous poets doubled as lyricists. Throughout the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first, poets explored musical themes and metaphors in measured forms and free verse. The present selection spans nearly eight decades and features poets / poet-lyricists from several different states of Brazil. The present selection could be nicely enhanced by the inclusion of such musically inclined poets as Ricardo Aleixo, Beatriz Azevedo, and Geraldo Carneiro, all of whom have spoken/performed in the United States.

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