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Selected PoemsEditions
ReviewI was introduced to Pessoa by a customer. I’d like to thank her, whoever she is. (as grateful as that? - Ed.) Fiery, honest, lyrical, stately, magical, magnificent, marvellous. I could fill a page with gushing adjectives. Clearly the man was barking mad (and probably a schizophrenic) but he could certainly write poetry. He could write poets too. Alberto Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis are the names of his masterful alter egos, their creation, it seems, a device to fragment and order into coherent identities and belief systems the clamourings of a mind awash with contradictions and discordances. These three poets within a poet (making four) all write in very different styles and pursue their chosen form to a point of hardened perfection. The introduction to this edition is very interesting and informative, and copes far better than this reviewer ever could in elucidating the complexities associated with this daring and defining genius. He obviously lives and breathes Pessoa, and rightly so. The poems work well in translation, which is just as well, as it is not a bilingual edition. - review by Paul Engles |
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