Pessoa Poetry as Himself

Two things surprised me when I first read about Fernando Pessoa while in America. First, here the great poet was known mostly by his prose volume known as "The Book of Disquiet." Second, the great poems most cited included "Salutation to Walt Whitman" and "Maritime Ode."

Where was the poet and the poets, Caeiro, Campos and Reis? And where were lines such as "the poet is a sham" or "I am nothing, I will never be but nothing. I can't wish but to be nothing. Aside from this, I have in me every dream in the world" or "To be great, be whole" or "To think of God is to disobey God," - lines that I could find in my memory after all those years?

I then realized that to bring together the Pessoa that populated my adolescent imagination I would have to collect them and thus this series was created.

This is not an academic exercise, this is not professional translation, this is a work of love and Saudade. This is a way to introduce a Pessoa I met and left deep marks in my existence to my American children and friends. This is a way to collect the poems I encountered as an adolescent in Fortaleza in the 1990s and that have been in my soul with me since.

Two things surprised me when I first read about Fernando Pessoa while in America. First, here the great poet was known mostly by his prose volume known as "The Book of Disquiet." Second, the great poems most cited included "Salutation to Walt Whitman" and "Maritime Ode."

Where was the poet and the poets, Caeiro, Campos and Reis? And where were lines such as "the poet is a sham" or "I am nothing, I will never be but nothing. I can't wish but to be nothing. Aside from this, I have in me every dream in the world" or "To be great, be whole" or "To think of God is to disobey God," - lines that I could find in my memory after all those years?

I then realized that to bring together the Pessoa that populated my adolescent imagination I would have to collect them and thus this series was created.

This is not an academic exercise, this is not professional translation, this is a work of love and Saudade. This is a way to introduce a Pessoa I met and left deep marks in my existence to my American children and friends. This is a way to collect the poems I encountered as an adolescent in Fortaleza in the 1990s and that have been in my soul with me since.