"Selected Poetry, 1937-1990," edited by Djelal Kadir, is a fine collection by the Brazilian poet Joao Cabral de Melo Neto. This is a bilingual edition, with Cabral's Portuguese originals and the English translations on facing pages. The translations are by editor Kadir, Elizabeth Bishop, Galway Kinnell, Ricardo da Silveira Lobo Sternberg, and others.
Cabral (as I read him through the translators) writes with a directness and clarity. Many of his poems are about poetry and writing in general. He also has a number of poems about other poets and creative artists: Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, Mondrian, Paul Klee, etc. Especially moving is his painful, but beautiful poem about Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez ("Encounter with a Poet").
Other excellent poems include "Culling Beans," in which the title act becomes a metaphor for writing (hence the title of this review); "The Death and Life of a Severino," with its flavor of social protest; and "Weaving the Morning," a wonderful poem about roosters greeting the dawn. I recommend this book to those interested in Brazilian literature or 20th century poetry.
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