Article
Critics on the work of Manuel Gusmao
January 18, 2006
Exceptionally long compared to the average book of poetry [...], this is, however, a body of solid “architecture”, supported by the temporality already described, by an extremely diverse network of self-quotations and references [...] as well as by a tightly sealed thematic cohesion contained within the most constant symbols — the rose, flower and colour, name of the feminine, the body, the text. [...] an intensely lyrical, intimate, secret, self-ironical voice emerges from this work, and a precision comparable to the best of those he has been most influenced by — Luiza Neto Jorge and Carlos de Oliveira. A voice that communicates with the person reading; because “The reader sets himself to writing. He writes for your — what a terrible thing; how could he? Let’s accept that this knowledge can be shared and let the reader proceed”, reading and treasuring what they have learned in this subtle and unsettling book. Essential reading.
Viagens na Terra das Palavras, 1993
We could call this a “generalised semiotics”, taking the capacity to produce meaning to its ultimate consequences, along with the total rejection of any unified voice which would allow for an unperturbed reading: from poem to poem [...] all the possibilities of meaning are gradually displaced or revoked [...]. The writing here is understood as the “construction and transformation” of the reality and not as the “representation” of an empirical, past instance; the poem affirms, constructs, engenders and meticulously gives life to things as revelation and wonder.
Whereas for some poets the material of the real serves as the point of departure for mechanisms of representation, which even whilst transfiguring it, remain faithful to a reproduction of its contours that are capable of taking in its most recognisable coordinates, [...] there are others who try to act as good conductors of the energy which flows through the real itself, capturing its intensity through words which spark a continuous semantic stream, resulting in the breaking down of the habitual limits of human perception, creating in their place other ways of experiencing the real. [...] it is this atmosphere of questioning the limits of language that we find in the poetry of Manuel Gusmão, whose second collection extends and heightens what the first showed us[...]. Românica nº 5, 1996
Manuel Gusmão’s second book of poetry proves what we already knew: that his is one of the great names in contemporary Portuguese poetry; and that there are poems here that would be essential reading for any overview of 20th century Portuguese literature.
Only certain aspects of the author’s personality (enormous discretion in relation to the media, unfailing political commitment, exemplary dedication to his university teaching and an outstanding reputation as a literary critic) have prevented the full and proper recognition of his poetic works. But a reading of the Maps/ The Wonder The Shadow removes any doubts or hesitations . . . This is poetry dense with cultural references, and an enormous capacity for self-reflection, but at the same time, pure, uninhibited, frugal, lilting, fluent, contagious and magical. Extremely reserved, surrounded by words on all sides, yet at the same time intensely physical, almost obscene (“fracture exposed to the dread”).Eduardo Prado Coelho
Público, 23 March 1996Exceptionally long compared to the average book of poetry [...], this is, however, a body of solid “architecture”, supported by the temporality already described, by an extremely diverse network of self-quotations and references [...] as well as by a tightly sealed thematic cohesion contained within the most constant symbols — the rose, flower and colour, name of the feminine, the body, the text. [...] an intensely lyrical, intimate, secret, self-ironical voice emerges from this work, and a precision comparable to the best of those he has been most influenced by — Luiza Neto Jorge and Carlos de Oliveira. A voice that communicates with the person reading; because “The reader sets himself to writing. He writes for your — what a terrible thing; how could he? Let’s accept that this knowledge can be shared and let the reader proceed”, reading and treasuring what they have learned in this subtle and unsettling book. Essential reading.
Paula Morão
(writing about Two Suns, The Rose/ the architecture of the world)Viagens na Terra das Palavras, 1993
We could call this a “generalised semiotics”, taking the capacity to produce meaning to its ultimate consequences, along with the total rejection of any unified voice which would allow for an unperturbed reading: from poem to poem [...] all the possibilities of meaning are gradually displaced or revoked [...]. The writing here is understood as the “construction and transformation” of the reality and not as the “representation” of an empirical, past instance; the poem affirms, constructs, engenders and meticulously gives life to things as revelation and wonder.
António Guerreiro
Expresso, 8 September 1990Whereas for some poets the material of the real serves as the point of departure for mechanisms of representation, which even whilst transfiguring it, remain faithful to a reproduction of its contours that are capable of taking in its most recognisable coordinates, [...] there are others who try to act as good conductors of the energy which flows through the real itself, capturing its intensity through words which spark a continuous semantic stream, resulting in the breaking down of the habitual limits of human perception, creating in their place other ways of experiencing the real. [...] it is this atmosphere of questioning the limits of language that we find in the poetry of Manuel Gusmão, whose second collection extends and heightens what the first showed us[...]. Românica nº 5, 1996
© Fernando Pinto do Amaral
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