"There are several serious ways of saying nothing but only poetry is true" "Manoel de Barros" "In the turn of the 20th Century, in 1916 photography was the scientific tried and true method of reproducing reality." "A vast part of mankind revered the photographic process as irrefutable proof that things are what they are." "The stern setting of portrait taking left no room forfaking it." "The processed image was the ultimate record of truth." "What truth had failed to foresee was that" "Alice's husband, little João Wenceslau's boldness would mess with this story, cheating on reality:" "With an old abandoned crate, João showed posterity who the master of the house was." "As punishment, his son Manoel was born with an incurable disorder:" "Manoel de Barros was born a poet." "My father supported me for a long time." "Things kept falling through for me." "I kept severaljobs." "I worked a while till boredom made me quit." "I spent 10 years in Pantanal with my wife." "Ten years later, my farm finally was profitable enough for me to do nothing." "And doing nothing means making myself available to poetry." "So I bought my idleness." "Only then could I afford being the professional bum I am now." "ONLY TEN PER CENT is A lie" "I looked for myself my entire life but couldn't find me" " by which I was saved" "Buying one's own idleness to become a professional bum costs way more than money can buy." "While doing nothing and being available to poetry" "Manoel embraced his parents'punishment and spent his lifetime holding a pencil and a pad with which he created verses that expanded the world." "Words that have affected so many lives and that have evolved into the Manoelês idiolect." "As Manoel himself puts it it is the language of fools and idiots." "DRAFT BOOK Also the language that creates a universe as absurd as it is palpable." "morning splendor cannot be opened with a knife our apple eats eva" "i speak and write absurdish yesterday it rained on the future" "Talking to Manoel wasn't easy." "Not that he isn't keen on talking." "The problem is he hates to have his speech recorded by gadgets of any kind." "For more than 70 years now, his interviews were in writing only." "Rumor has it that a famous TV host offered him a brand new car for a live interview." "Manoel still rides his old car." "the oral language allows no draft" "I won't leave my inner self not even to go fishing" "I spent a few days in Campo Grande trying to convince Manoel to talk." "And he always presented pretty convincing arguments of why it made no sense to interview him." "He even dared to say that the biological Manoel was utterly uninteresting." "And that I should focus on his "letteral"self on his books only." "I insisted, but after a lot of negotiations" "Manoel put an end to it all saying his art only expressed itself through writing." "I gave up then." "I said: "Whatever, Manoel." "It was only a dream"" "Manoel paused quietly for a moment then told me to bring my stuff over early the next day." "I think you can ask me your questions." "If they don't interest me, I won't answer." "If they do, I will." "Okay, then." "I'll start by asking:" "What is poetry good for?" "That question has already been asked" "Once I coined a phrase I assigned to Rabelais because he used to talk about poetry." "But the phrase reads like this:" ""Poetry is the virtue of uselessness."" "This sentence is mine but I assigned it to Rabelais because it resonates authority." "Sounds important, uh?" "What's useless is only useful to poetry and not much else." "It's useful to poetry." "It's like garbage, a thing of no use discarded anywhere which you have to discover." "We don't describe poetry." "We discover it." "We find it." "I'm sought after by words." "I have no inspiration." "I don't know what that is." "Only by name." "I'm excited by a word, it excites me, it falls in love with me" "Girl friends across the world trace each other by smell then blossom in a poem." "And they blossom in me, see?" "So you don't believe in inspiration?" "No. I only know it by name, I swear." "Poetry is beauty manipulated." "It's craftsmanship." "It happens, it comes through, when you gave form, harmony, sound" "to each word, each syllable, each letter." "I am two beings." "The first one is the fruit of João and Alice's love." "second is letteral:" "It's the fruit of a nature that thinks through images, as Paul Valéry would put it." "The first is here in nail, clothes, hats, and vanity." "The second is here in letters, syllables, vanity phrases." "And we're okay that you invest your love on us." "Everything that Manoel de Barros ever crafted every letter he collected has been traced in his minute handwriting in notebooks he makes himself." "Every day for decades, he locks himself away in a cubicle he calls" ""place of being useless."" "where he unleashes the dirt grounds and backyard he carries in his mind." "I'd define a poem as a frame of words with a song inside." "By song, I mean a warble." "I lived in the woods." "Bird warbles taught me harmony." "Those verses and craftsmanship emerging from the place of being useless could be called" ""deslimits of the word."" "They're spellbinding and captivating to many readers." "But more than that:" "They allow readers to see things from a fresh perspective." "POETRY IS TO FLY OUT OF THE wing" "This is what I call verbal drawing." "You get to place an image in your reader's eyes." "images are words we lacked" "After being introduced to Manoel's verbal drawing and his didactics of invention" "and demanding more imagination." "Things no longer want to be seen by reasonable people" "They would like to be seen blue." "Perhaps that's why he appeals so much to the new generation when your eye is free enough for you to say" ""things don't want to be seen by reasonable people"." "This phrase is fascinating for he doesn't write from a person's perspective rather from the object's point of view." "As if all things around us were saying:" ""For God's sake, free me from the purpose of being simply a chair to sit in."" "A chair has multiple other uses sitting is basic, it's a chair's primary level." "When things and the world beg for help and plead for men to save them from the paucity of description a chair can have 200 thousand poetical uses." "The world becomes unmeasurable." "That's where I find him liberating." "The ground did not want to be seen by reasonable people either." "It was full of being just a spot where everyone step their feet on." "When Joel read "The Expositive Grammarof the Ground", he realized that looking down could be more interesting and liberating than contemplating the celestial immensity." "First he pointed at the small, the infinitesimal." "Brazilian poetry, at least the most popular one is exclamatory and eloquent." "Often associated with a sunset idea." "It's hyperbolic." "Then comes this guy saying:" ""Lift the stone and look underneath it at the shade."" ""The charm of small discarded things."" "That's revolutionary in the Brazilian Poetry." "It slowly messes with your own perspective your daily perception of the world." "So Manoel de Barros' insightful poetry fine-tunes your vision expands your world-view your cosmovision." "Only things from the ground celeste me" "first CHILDHOOD In his first childhood playing along the banks of Paraguay River" "Manoel invents several useless gadgets:" "He discovers a kinship between tin cans and ships he designs the horizon stretcher and invents the sunrise opener." "My inventiveness is unconscious." "The creative imagination, the productive imagination searches into our childhood's chests." "Bachelard said we all have little chests a little box, a safe where we keep our primary perceptions." "The first scents you smell the first sounds of falling leaves of the wind all that is formed in your childhood." "I've told you that I was asked to write a chapter on my young years another one on my senior years and I told them I'm still in my childhood." "In my poetry, I'm still in my childhood." "I can only write about childhood for all I do is search into that chest." "That little chest whence Manoel fetches verses is well-hidden and contains invented memories only." "That's why those who carry a search on him or facts from his biography end up empty-handed." "Empty-handed, but with one's imagination full." "I have a confession to make:" "ninety per cent of what I write is invented only ten per cent is a lie" "Jaime has researched Manoel's biography at length only to become more confused." "He can't decide whether what he found falls under the 90 per cent that's invented or the 10 per cent of lies." "Manoel couldn't be more mischievous with chronology, timelines and facts, as well." "In his invented memories he says he dates and has wed dozens of women and that he's died" "Anyway, he's an inventive poet who creates sentences no other person would allow him or herself to write." "And if facts don't mirror life, my friend too bad for the facts." "1922:" "Manoel listens in on the color of leaves" "1923:" "Manoel holds his grandfather's eye glass" "1924:" "Manoel captures the voice of fish" "Those searching for truth in Manoel's work will only find beauty." "In my book, Poemas Rupestres," "I talk about a place where there was nothing at all very much like where l grew up, actually." "There was nothing there." "So poetry arises from a lack of everything." "You have to be inventive." "The small community where we lived was full of liars." "Cause they'd have no life unless they invented stories." "It marked me as a kid has stayed with me." "In a community of 7 or 8 people we had nothing to talk about." "There was no radio, no TV, nothing." "We didn't have neighbours." "one to engage in conversation with." "Not even neighbours." "You had to talk to ducks, hens, and so on." "The lack of talk coupled with the lack neighbors fertilized in the poet an invented biography that's more authentic than real life." "everything i don't invent is false" "It' false indeed." "What comes from our inner core that's our truth." "My poetry is true." "It is invented but it's absolutely true." "What's the difference between an invention and a lie?" "If I tell you that I've gone to the bakery to buy bread, that's a lie." "I'm here, not at the bakery's and I haven't bought bread." "Invention is serious business." "Invention can enhance the world, you know?" "I never liked having a date set to my existence." "Our greatest date was the when." "In the beginning of his second childhood as a boarder in a Marista School" "Manoel learns from Padre Antonio Vieira's writings the capacity to see by hearing." "With his new skill, Manoel develops several disorders." "I saw morning with her legs spread out to the sun." "I drew without a pencil." "Just as Vieira taught me." "Vieira said: "See by hearing."" "You can only understand an image and see it by hearing." "Once you've heard it, you see the image." "So I painted morning legs spread out to the sun and then the sun fertilizing her parts." "I went to boarding school and didn't go home on weekends 'cause there was no one to pick me up in Rio." "So on the weekends, I'd go to the library I played soccer with the priests" "Seen a priest playing soccer in his cassock?" "They do." "And Father Ezequiel, whose name is in the book, though it's not him." "It's a fib, too, see?" "An invention." "That Father had another name." "And he was a great friend of mine." "I complained to him that I couldn't stand reading those chivalry books heroic tales." "Things I found unsatisfying." "He said: "Really, Manoel?" l said: "Yeah."" "I craved better reading materials and he gave me Vieira." "I was delighted." "I said to myself:" ""That's what I'm cut out for."" "the poetic word has to reach a toy level" "Mrs. Maria?" "!" "It's done, Mrs. Maria." "Paulo's yet another victim bitten by the Manoelês dialect." "It all started with a magnet on a broken fridge." "Then came the book, and since everything he puts his hands on either works fine again or becomes something nobody's ever seen." "When I was a kid my grandfather taught me how to make my own toys." "How to drill holes and clip things to cans, how to work with glass." "Yesterday's toys are my life today." "I fix and meddle with these things." "Photographing silence is tough so I made this clasp to fasten silence." "This funnel here gathers silence which ends up here into this clear glass." "Silence can't be seen but it's in here." "This is the rustling nail." "For those who swing a hammer" "I made this six-pronged nail." "They'll never miss another nail head." "One day, it dawns on me to craft a sunrise opener." "And I throw myself into it just on and on." "Then next day when I think of the word "sunrise opener"," "the word awakens changed, it rises different." "Then I look at what I've made and wanna make something else." "Just a sec." "This is the horizon stretcher." "To be pretty taut, the horizon requires breeze." "So I put this small wind-machine." "Horizon stretcher." "The machine of being useless." "I put some junk here" "and attached this to the machine of being useless." "It's good for nothing, though." "machine of being useless toad with aluminum frames moonlight with automatic breaks the rolling of thrushes creamy plier velvet screw" "Some believe Manoel has a screw missing." "Abílio knows for a fact whether his brother has a screw less or too many." "I've once told him he was born with lyrical affective disorder." "He was born with a lyrical affective disorder." "He's possibly the world's only full-time living poet." "By full-time, I mean with no other concern besides poetry." "He hasn't been always like this." "But as he grew old and aged, and he's been aging for a while, he's become less connected to the praxis and more and more tuned into poetry." "That's why I say he's a full-time poet." "In my case, at least, it takes up all my time." "I'm obsessive." "I can't do anything else." "That's all I can do." "I'm deprived of a practical sense." "So this is my craft, it's always been." "I know no other." "I can do nothing else." "I try to hammer a nail into the wall and bang my finger." "Hey Palmiro!" "Comin'!" "For 28 years, Palmiro worked in the Pantanal farm" "Manoel de Barros inherited from his father." "Palmiro's yet another "deshero" to be added into" "Manoel's blender of imagination and language." "Palmiro dissolves himself between the actual world and the actual words." "With no formal education whenever Palmiro stumbles upon Portuguese rules an original speech emerges and becomes poetry material." "I was fixing an "ingrown" water tank" "A pipe broke." "Been at it since sun up." "Yeah, non-stop." "Come on in." "C'mon." "How about some coffee?" "Coffee?" "Sure." "Comin' right up." "My life's been good." "Lately I'e been "precarious"" "'cause I have been having "breaking problems"" "I had broken 6 "laths" LATH= RIB BONE" "With 1 more, 7 now." "Got up early to milk the cows, but one was missin'." "So I round'em all up in the pen." "Their stalls had a small door to let the calves out." "So I untied the rope, unlatched the gate and when I opened it she charged, and surprised me." "Who did?" "Head first, she hit me right here and pushed me against the stall pole." "She pressed me hard against it." "She kept hitting me real hard." "I yelled at her, but" "Who?" "The cow!" "She kept her head down and flung me into the air." "I had a dog this tiny as a pet." "And that dog saved me." "When he saw I was in trouble, he just gnawed at the cow's ankle, till she backed up and I ran away." ""MlLK-TAKlNG" Milk-taking," ""TO GO BY ON FOOT" I go nowhere "by on foot"." "Ask her." "I ride my bike everywhere." ""BEATER" When you get that make some herb tea and drink it." "Just a little." "Drink this much and that's it." "Why is Manoel so fond of you?" "What do you two yap about?" "We talk about so much I wouldn't remember." "He was thin, put on too much weight, and now he's "graxudo."" "GRAXUDO = FAT" "Here's the thing with my godfather," "I've known him for 53 years," "And he's joked with me all his life and told me his stories." "All those things he said sometimes really amazed me." "You'd get mad at me, asking:" ""But what is it with the two of you?"" "And I: "Why?"" ""You two sit there in the den talking and talking, but as soon as you see me, you zip it."" ""What's going on?"" "I'd say:" ""Oh, it's nothing."" ""Some stuff from his childhood."" "PALMlROLAND" "hero deshero" "I love Charlie Chaplin, you know?" "He has inspired the world not only me, but the whole world." "Charlie Chaplin invented the anti-hero." "Charlie Chaplin's tramp is the hero of our century." "And the man who gave the world that vision was Charlie Chaplin." "No doubt about it." "Because his work is timeless." "Everlasting." "If you watch Charlie Chaplin on your TV right now and it's so contemporary." "He's inspired that in me he brought this out." "If it's not a hero, it's a deshero, right?" "Chaplin's things are..." "His "The Kid", those tramps who were too prude to date the girl." "That was something." "Shit, I've admired him my whole life." "I have, I think..." "One of my poems says that Charlie Chaplin is important, because..." "Well, I can't remember now." "Saint Francis memorialized birds." "Vieira, fish." "Shakespeare, Love, Doubt, fools." "Charlie Chaplin memorialized bums." "In this second childhood young Manoel de Barros makes a long and decisive trip to Bolivia where he spends months collecting waste and walking about idly." "In the village of Chiquitos with the art of painter Rômulo Quiroga, he discovers:" "The eye views the memory reviews and the imagination transviews." "And comes to the following conclusion:" "We need to transview the world." "Poets have the gift of transforming things through words." "Frankly, to me, it's an illness." "It's a brain disorder." "I'm not normal." "Poets are not normal." "We have an eye a slanted eye." "And I have that psychic eye." "I see things that don't exist, and are twisted." "I see myself as a clairvoyant." "We need to transview the world." "We need to transview the world, transview the world, transview the world." "In Manoel's verses" "Viviane saw that philosophy, reason, and logic don't encompass all our perceptions." "Now I'm embodied by that phrase." "A phrase I don't feel like commenting." "That is real poetry." "It makes you speechless." "poetry is not to be understood poetry is to be incorporated" "Poetry rejects too much explanation." "It defies explanations." "If explained, to me, it ceases being poetry." "It becomes prose and gets to be influenced by reason." "And reason is the last thing that should have a say in poetry." "I feel like dressing a costume with a big tear on reason's ass so it is turned into something poetic." "MANOEL'S drawings Poetry speaks to our sensibility to the sensitive perception that men have that my reader may have." "If they are perceptively sensitive, they'll like my poetry." "But if you try to read my poetry through reason:" ""Oh here he implied a..."" "I'm not implying anything, young man." "What I'm doing with language that's supposed to be like listening to music." "I don't want to pass information." "I never wanted." "Only admiration." "You can't describe poetry." "You discover it." "In particular those inhospitable things which are different." "Like stubbing your toe on a rock." "Pow!" "Early on, many people are trained to believe in a higher calling." "Our National Anthem exhorts:" ""You'll see your sons don't fear to fight."" "And the Army claims:" ""Young men, we want you!"" "But deep down, what everybody hopes for is to be recruited to believe in more genuine dreams." "Danilinho got his calling from Manoel." ""You're an artist." I said: "What?"" "No way." ""Take a course." "Learn more about it."" ""Go to Parque Lage and check it out."" ""But just take one look then leave it behind." "Just go look at it."" "He encouraged me to do what he knew I did, but had been trapped inside me." "That was inspiring." "Coming from him." "My father would come to my farm, find me sculpting, and say:" ""What kept you from the field?"" ""Wood-carving and making an all-around mess?"" "When Manoel told me:" ""This is excellent." "I'll take it."" "And he did!" "He said that." "He was like a crank, you know?" "Coming from him, I had to do it." "I said:" ""Okay, I'm up for it."" ""Artist", damn!" "danilinho wood-carving and making an all-around mess" "His laugh, "ha ha ha"" "He's a kid." "I tell everybody about people who phone me here" "selling automobiles." "These car salesmen." "When they call, I say:" ""Son, I'm 90, on a wheelchair and I'm blind."" ""Do you expect me to buy a car?"" "He hangs up." ""Thank you."" "Even at my age, I still enjoy my spirits, you know?" "I drink Cachaça and Scotch every day." "My brain cells seem to have been spared." "If you drink, don't drive." "If you're driving, don't drink." "There are no safe consumption levels for these substances." "Fausto has consumed all of Manoel de Barros' books." "I'd say one Manoel is born only every 10,000 years." "Much like a Millôr Fernandes, a Joyce, a Shakespeare, a... a Cervantes, a Moliere." "Why do I say that?" "Because the world needs these people to remind us of our humanity." "We live in a world that is practically automatic, dull." "Then Manoel de Barros comes along as a milestone." "And he says:" ""Look, that's not what you're all alive for."" ""Mankind is supposed to be something else."" "This is similar to Manoel's poetry." "But it's worse!" "Written conversations with Manoel de Barros" "What place does poetry occupy in your life?" "I can't do anything else." "I mean:" "I can open doors, flush, sharpen pencils, buy bread at 6 p.m." "And so on." "What matters most to poetry, truth or illusion?" "Poets are not bound by truth perhaps only by verisimilitude" "He who describes isn't the master of his subjects." "He who invents is." "At the end of his second childhood he comes into farmlands in Pantanal Matogrossense and spends over 10 years running Fazenda Santa Cruz isolated from big cities." "Meanwhile, Manoel resumes his word fertilization process." "to find blue I use birds" "The other day I said my poetry is fertilized by the sun, the waters, the soil of Pantanal." "It is fertilized but, personally, I don't use words to describe landscapes." "A poem is not an instance of landscape." "It's an instance of language." "I was born in Pantanal." "I'm a son of Pantanal." "I enjoy Pantanal." "I love Pantanal." "I grew up in Pantanal." "What provides for me and my idleness is Pantanal." "So it's where..." "But me, I am a poet of the word." "And no one will understand that." "Very few understand that." "That I'm not a landscape poet." "I'm not an ecological poet." "I'm not doing folklore." "I don't express costumes, I'm not a historian." "I'm a poet." "A poet is one who invents." "I invent my own Pantantal." "CORUMBA" " PANTANAL" "A lot of people are curious to know where Manoel finds the images" "of the invented Pantanal from his books." "People try and match, and the Pantanal photographed in the flesh." "Salim, from Corumbá, fertilizes people's endless curiosity." "Manoelês ldiolect Guide (1 real)" "Visitors come to Corumbá after all about the poet." "Everything:" "Where he lived, sites from his poems." "This empty field is key 'cause apparently the poet came here to meet the woman with 7 breasts he'd "do vagination" with." "From that field this is our next stop." "On the Bolivian side over there, there's the hill that twists the scenery's butt." "Here, this is where Maria Black Patch used to entertain her clients." "Whenever new farm hand arrived or when Military men were off duty this place came alive." "This is where she received her clients." "maria black patch, 18, had a huge amount of hair we paid to see the phenomenon the young girl covered her face with a white sheet and left only her black patch peeking out" "Out of all of Manoel's characters, none is the more recurrent nor more enigmatic than Bernardo." "Bernardo?" "!" "Bernardo can be considered the poet's alter ego." "Bernardo is what Manoel says he'd like to be." "Bernardo is almost tree" "His silence is so loud birds hear it from afar." "And come perch on his shoulder." "Bernardo was the best buddy at the farm." "The only sounds he made were those of the ships mooring in Corumbá." "Holy Mother!" "Same thing everyday." "And he didn't say a word." "He couldn't speak." "I have no thought" "I only have trees winds" "Once, I lifted his mattress and found 2 stacks of money." "Two fat stacks under his mattress." "But all good for nothing, Jesus!" "Methuselah's money." "Old!" "Covered in mold." "He'd drink a standard water glass full of cachaça bottoms up." "Birds perched on him." "He'd wave at them, whistle, and they'd come and perch on his shoulder, on his arm, his hand." "All kinds of birds." "He'd play with fish in the river like this." "bernardo deregulates nature his eye magnifies the sunset" "(Can one man enrich nature with his incompleteness?" ")" "Can one man enrich nature with his incompleteness?" "If Pantanal's geography differs from the world Manoel redesigned with his words many see an affinity that outweighs genetics between Martha Barros's art and her father's verses." "an artist's word has to drip dark nouns from him" "There's a match between his work and mine which he puts so beautifully, saying, "l illuminate" it." "Thus, "illumination."" "They are not intended as illustrations as that'd be impossible." "A friend from Brasília has sent me a poem by a 7-year old girl who wrote:" ""A butterfly is a color that flies."" "I think childhood has this power." "Manoel's written that children fail in grammar and nail on poetry." "When João de Barros said he wanted to climb a tree to pull the wind by its tail, his father was touched and chatted away." "When João was 5" "I began to observe his speech." "Everyday he'd sit me on his lap and ask me questions." "On a notebook, a pad, he'd write it all down." "He'd often laugh at the foolishness I'd say." ""l heard the color of that bird."" "Well, I didn't." "We don't hear colors." "See?" "And all that has an impact." "Childhood is the best source of poetry ever because it switches senses." "the boy fell into the river, splash he got all wet with fish the water was shallow to my feet" "Only as an adult I realized it." "I pick up the book" ""Poems fished out of João's speech"" "I remember saying those things about "Maria Preta," which was actually" ""Maria Pinto", my babysitter." "maria-preta came maked me three fruit." "my pocket had a sun with birds." "fails in grammar but nails on poetry." "third CHILDHOOD When Manoel comes into his third childhood, a little over 70, his verses are revealed and revered by the humorist, journalist, writer and "padball inventor", Millôr Fernandes." "He wrote comic strips." "He print one of my poems, people took notice." "Then people started calling me, even publishing houses with invitations." "If Millôr Fernandes talked about him people got curious." "A man living in anonymity?" "I was over half a century since he was in the press." "A very close friend of Manoel's called and told us:" ""Manoel, it's your acclamation."" "Stella met Manoel way before he got such acclaim." "I'd decided to not get married." "So I looked at an apartment to buy where l could be independent from my family and Manoel was the realtor." "I was quite taken by him, you know?" "After a brief 2-3 months dating on the eve of our wedding, his old landlady who I'd become friends with, said:" ""Come see Manoel's room, where he sleeps."" "I went in and saw a stack of papers on a desk." "She said: "You know he's a poet, right?"" ""A poet?", I said." "Back then, my family wouldn't approve of a poet because they had such high standards." "I said, "l didn't know that."" ""l know he's very intelligent we've become friends, he's really charming but I never knew he was a poet."" "I mean, I found out then." "I'mjealous, but what can I do?" "It's natural for him to be harassed." "You're not shooting any of this, are you?" "My wife is still jealous of me." "I am a ruin." "Today I'm more than a ruin." "Debris I am debris." "Then there's women who write me and some are love letters and she knows of some." "Say: "Do you think any of those ladies would be interested in debris?"" "For well over half a century scarcely any of Manoel's readers knew his physical appearance." "He's always been a home buddy totally camera-shy never liked talking in public and never attended literary events." "But Manoel forgot an important detail:" "He couldn't remain invisible behind his phrases." "Man, who is this guy?" "He must be 30-ish, I thought. 40, tops." "I found him quite modern." "And his poetry" "I read "Livro das lgnorãças", his first book I bought, 'cause I'd heard of him." "It was the first time that the name" "Manoel de Barros, came to my attention." "Then I saw Livro das lgnorãças at a bookstore and I was impressed." "I found him so modern." "Repeat repeat - until rendered different." "Repeating is a gift of style." "When he first met me, Mindlin said..." "He came to Mato Grosso to meet me and he said:" ""l can't fathom Manoel's poetry."" ""He's made no sonnets, no rhymes no triplets, no quartets."" ""l don't know whether his poetry is revolutionary or too modern."" "That moved me in a way that was new to me." "poet: a guy who insists on attending his own missed encounters" "He's found freedom within himself." "And has reached the most advanced state of wit which is humor." "few understood almost nothing" "I understood a little less" "Through humor, you can turn senses around." "There's a lovely poem, it's quintessential." ""The river winding behind our house looked like soft glass winding behind our house."" "And a passerby said:" ""This bend in the river behind your house is known as a meander."" ""That did with the image of a glass snake winding behind the house." "It was a meander."" ""The name stripped the image."" "That's so C'mon!" "How can he do that?" ""Meander"?" "Boring!" ""That's a meander"?" "A glass snake winding behind the house beats meander 10 to 0!" "I crave throwing out everything commonplace." "Assigning new behaviors to things to things, to phrases." "Poets transfigure things." "I can objectify what's human humanize objects vegetalize human beings and animals." "That's the way of my poetry." "I do that often." "when it rains in the arms of an ant, the horizon shrinks" "Adriana spends a lot of time wondering about useless things." "Adriana wants to know where the rain water goes to where the swinging of leaves goes to." "Adriana wants to know where..." "The lighters we lose, Bic pens, where do Bic caps go?" "It's amazing!" "Books." "Remember the old tapes?" "People kept losing those tapes." "There's gotta be a museum, a mansion, a hole in the ground with these lost object." "I'm positive that's where Manoel picks things." "Things lost, beyond their denomination carry the sense of what was lost of what's unimportant, to put it in Manoel's terms." "But it's very important." "Manoel's poetry came late into my life." "I can't describe it, 'cause it was a transformation like having my baby, my mother's death a time I thought I had cancer." "Some things affect our lives so seriously it's like an internal tsunami." "Manoel was like that." "I read him and said:" ""This exists?" "!"" ""How come I never knew about it?"" "I find the simplicity of Manoel's poetry to be so profound" "It's hard to theorize about it." ""A bird trees me."" "How can you theorize about that verse?" "How can you theorize about that verse?" "How?" "Based on what?" "Who are you to?" "It you get it, you get it." "If you don't, forget it." "Powerful for me is not he who finds gold." "Is he who finds insignificancies (the world's  ours)" "Is he who finds insignificancies (the world's  ours)" "For that phrase, I was hailed as an idiot." "I was so moved I cried." "I'm a suckerfor compliments." "I'm a suckerfor compliments." "Words provoke me in my dreams they take up all of my dreams they produce them." "Words are useful to realize the poet's dream." "I have some 200, 300 notebooks." "I have some 200, 300 notebooks." "You'd get tired of me showing one by one." "This one:" ""Quand on est dans la merde" "jusqu'eu cou, up to your neck jusqu'eu cou, up to your neck il ne reste plus qu'à chanter."" ""If you're in shit up to your neck the only thing you can do is sing."" "At the height of his third childhood, past 80," "Manoel has never been more fertile and productive." "Manoel has never been more fertile and productive." "He publishes dozens of books wins several literary prizes and becomes Brazil's best-selling poetry author." "His work is spread thanks to a voracious buzz and his verses come up in unexpected places." "and his verses come up in unexpected places." ""from where l am I have already left"" "Lucia Castelo Branco came to me as the organizer of my complete works." "She said: "l'd like to see your critical fortune."" "I said:" ""l don't have one."" "I have readers." "I have readers." "I'm Brazil's best-selling poet" "MANOEL AT BlENAL DO livro no doubt about it." "I'm most proud of being read and being loved by my readers." "I feel truly loved by all those who read me." "I get letters from all across the world with such affection." "Some people are coy:" ""l don't really know how to start this."" ""l don't really know how to start this."" "To me, to my soul, that's more rewarding than any reviewer." "I read the essays written about me" "MA and Ph.D. theses I'm often sent." "I enjoy reading them" "I enjoy reading them and discovering myself in them." "There are things I never knew." "Before he became famous he'd ask me to read his books" "before anybody else." ""Read it."" "Then fame came, and he doesn't do it anymore." "Then fame came, and he doesn't do it anymore." "Now I only read them after they're in print." "Some say:" ""He's an old wacko."" "Some students get pissed off." "People who are not into any of this," "People who are not into any of this, with no access to it, are forced to buy my father's books." "He said: "l'm asking the Department of Education to stop referring my book in SAT tests."" "Some people grow to actually hate them." "Some people grow to actually hate them." "You're so not into it then comes this guy talking about "mineral wisdom?"" "One final question:" "How would you like to be remembered by?" "It's a tough question to answer, but..." "It's a cruel question." "Evidently, if I could ever be remembered," "Evidently, if I could ever be remembered, if I were blessed with perennity, it could only be through poetry." "Because we are all made equal going down the same septic tanks, back to dust." "The only possibility I see who knows how far my work goes, right?" "But I could only aspire for a brief afterlife as a poet." "as a poet." "The biological being suffers with weather fluctuations." "Time travels one way only." "We are born grow grow old age and die." "To beat dying, one should tie time to a pole." "To beat dying, one should tie time to a pole." "Herein lies poetry's science:" "The World History is made by Generals and wars but it is corrected by poets who see first, who know first." "but it is corrected by poets who see first, who know first." "i'm not biographable Manoel de Barros" "BlANCA RAMONEDA actress and journalist" "Starred in lnutilezas, an adaptation of the poet's work." "JOEL PIZZINl filmmaker" "JOEL PIZZINl filmmaker" "Shot "Caramujo Flor" inspired by the poet's work." "jaime LEBOVlTCHT actor" "Rehearses invention and lies in the work of Manoel de Barros." "PAULO GIANNINl actor" "Staged the monologue "Homem de Barros" inspired by the poet's work." "Staged the monologue "Homem de Barros" inspired by the poet's work." "ABÍLIO DE BARROS younger brother" "Helped Manoel become a full-time poet." "PALMlRO handyman" "Linguistic consultant, doesn't walk by on foot and is not precarious." "VlVlANE MOSÉ philosopher and writer" "VlVlANE MOSÉ philosopher and writer" "Philosophizes phrases who render us speechless" "DANlLlNHO fine artist and farmer" "His works are exhibited in Buracão in Campo Grande and across the world." "FAUSTO WOLFF writer and journalist" "Author of some 20 books,including the award-winning "À Mão Esquerda"." "Author of some 20 books,including the award-winning "À Mão Esquerda"." "SALlM actor" "Starred in "Livro de Prê-Coisas" across the Atlantic, in Lisbon." "MARTHA BARROS fine artist and the poet's daughter" "Continues to create Illuminations which humanize walls." "JOÃO DE BARROS the poet's son" "Wind?" "Only by climbing up a tree can you grab it by its tail." "Saying this is like bragging about it." "And I don't like to do that but I'll tell you, in jest." "Young lady from S. Catarina came here to meet me." "A pretty girl, you know." "She sat down where you usually do." "I was there, too." "She started caressing my leg, caressing my leg, a weird thing." "I asked:" ""What is it, young lady?"" ""l just wanna make sure you exist."" "That's not a lie." "No." "That's not a lie." "No." "Nor an invention." "STELLA BARROS wife" "Mrs. Lady Bird." "Partner of all life and of all poetry." "elisa LUClNDA actress and writer" "elisa LUClNDA actress and writer" "Created "Recital Sobre Nada", based on the poet's work." "ADRIANA FALCÃO writer and screenwriter" "Found her prose in the same place she lost pen caps and cassete tapes." "Found her prose in the same place she lost pen caps and cassete tapes."