Poetry
Caminhada
Not translated into English
Ovídio Martins · 1962
Synopsis
Fifty-five pieces, including an entire closing section in Creole. The book answers the poets of the previous generation, who sang of departure: here no one leaves, one stays and holds on. The best-known piece says so plainly, rejecting escape, the sea and the dream of elsewhere to cry out that one must remain. The rest ranges from drought to labour, hunger and those who came back empty-handed.
Context
The collection gathers poems published since 1958 in Claridade and in the bulletins of the archipelago. It was published in Lisbon in 1962, seventy-nine pages, the thirteenth title in the literary series of the Autores Ultramarinos, the collection of the Casa dos Estudantes do Império, which reprinted it under its own name the following year. Fifty-five pieces are divided into three parts, the last of which, Camin criol, is written in Creole. A facsimile was put online in 2015 by the union of Portuguese-speaking capital cities.
Who it is for
Short pieces, in Portuguese for the first two parts and in Creole for the third. Knowing what the dream of departure was in the poetry of the islands sheds light on what is at stake.
Prizes and reception
“Anti-évasion”, taken from this book, has appeared in almost all anthologies of Portuguese-language African poetry, and in French from 1969.