Haroldo de Campos, Novas: Selected Writings, Ed. by Antonio Sergio Bessa and Odile Cisneros, Northwestern University Press, 2007.
The first full-scale English translation of one of Brazil's-and the world's-most influential avant-garde literary voices.
A generous introduction to one of the key literary figures to emerge from Brazil in the second half of the twentieth century, this book offers English-speaking readers an ample selection of this prodigious writer's celebrated poetry and widely influential critical work. As a poet and as a cofounder of the renowned group Noigandres, Haroldo de Campos has made a unique and substantial contribution to the theory and practice of experimental writing, particularly the form known as concrete poetry, and to the Latin American avant-garde as a whole. These contributions, acclaimed worldwide by figures such as Umberto Eco, Jacques Derrida, Octavio Paz, and Guillermo Cabrera Infante, can be observed unfolding here, first in poetry selections ranging from de Campos' early work before concretism through his most recent production; then in theoretical texts that trace his evolution as a critic from an early interest in baroque and modernist writers to his development of an innovative model for reading, translating, and writing. This second, critical section of the book includes de Campos' encounters with the tasks of translating and reading some of the most important texts of Eastern and Western culture-from Ecclesiastes to the No play Hagoromo, from Dante to Paz-thus charting a genealogy of modern literature.
Together, these poems and critical writings afford English-speaking readers their first sustained exposure to a unique personality within the international avant-garde, a writer described by Brazilian poet João Cabral de Melo Neto as "that wonderful thing: / a poet and a translator who came to literature armed with an enviable / knowledge of the literary phenomenon."
excerpts:
www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/galaxias/
Begun in 1963 and only published in its final form in 1984, Galaxias is a sui generis work. As Haroldo de Campos himself wrote: “An audiovideotext, a videotextgame, the Galaxias situate themselves on the border between prose and poetry. In this kaleidoscopic book, there’s an epic, narrative gesture—mini-stories that come together and dissolve like the ‘suspense’ of a detective novel … but the image remains, the vision or calling of the epiphanic.” A series of 50 “galactic cantos”—in homage to both Dante and Pound—de Campos likewise follows James Joyce’s cue in conceiving of Galaxias as a “defense and illustration” of the Portuguese language and its poetic possibilities. The text incorporates literary allusion, citation, and words and phrases in at least a dozen languages, making Galaxias a formidable experiment in polyglot poetry. Galaxias charts the literal and literary journeys de Campos undertook from the early 1950s on. Arguably his chief poetic accomplishment, Galaxias is also a landmark in world avant-garde poetics.
The important Brazilian poet-translator-theorist Haroldo de Campos’s book-length poem Galáxias (1963–84) is surely one of the great poems of the second half of the twentieth-century—a postmodern “concrete prose” response to Campos’s modernist master Ezra Pound. Its 50 “galactic” cantos, each one part lyric, part narrative, rich in allusive material and multilingual phrasing, comprise a dense network of poetic effects, even as they also tell a buried story about Haroldo’s travels in unknown lands.
Translating the Galáxias, with their elaborate word play and complex echo structure would seem almost impossible. But Odile Cisneros has done it and done it beautifully. She recreates Haroldo’s rhythm, his assonance and rhyme effects, his etymological play, so as to allow the Anglophone reader to understand the poem’s majesty. And Cisneros provides the scholarly apparatus necessary to understand the deep structure of these strange and original cantos. A brilliant translation of a brilliant work, Cisneros’s Galaxias is a major literary event. - Marjorie Perloff
Haroldo de Campos’s epic and epiphanic Galaxias finds the poetic in prose and the narrative in poetry, demonstrating again why he was one of the liveliest and most original poets of his generation in Brazil or elsewhere. Like 100 mini-kaleidoscopes, or travel stories, or “videotextgames,” to echo de Campos, Galaxias anticipates the best of our current social media world but with an unmatched vision and verve. - John Keene
excerpt:
what i mostly see here on this paper is the emptiness of paper folding over scorpion
of words folding over itself and the cavernous cavity it forms
when words empty out from their emptiness the scorpion has a sharp nail of
words and its sting brands silence nails through silence in the singular i nail writing
about or not writing and when this emptiness turns dense and dances and tenses
its arabesques between scripted and ex-scripted trembling trellises in reverse
white excrement of suspended suppressed spiders the silence where the i
selves itself selfsighting enselves inmyselfselving hangingthread of text ex-text
that’s why i write rewrite nail in the nought the font of this text the fork
fiendish fingers of fables what follows is finding fables finite fables the
finiunison of the one overflowing in emptiness what i mostly see here is this paper that
i scalp the pulp of words on paper i expalpate the blank palpus of a
cobweb paper woven from those threads from webs of surprised spiders
sneakily suppressed for thus is silence and from the smallest margin
from the smallest trivial trifle margin of nevernothing rim border brim of the word
silence gushes out silence rushes out silence begetting and emptiness restoring
the emptiness i mostly see here in this waistband book where the journey happens
in the knot of the book where the journey fails and failing speaks where the journey
is fable dust floating over nothingness is stirred up dust is filings rushing to the magnet
and if you prefer the facile i summon the difficult if the facile seems graceful to you
the difficult is fierce and if you prefer the seen i favor the unforeseen and
Where the facile is your alibi the difficult is my risk thinking the silence that’s
stuck behind words thinking this silence that fills up the pores of
things like a gold and shows us the hollows of words choked by that
gold thinking again the silence golden body where everything wore out the
suffocated solfataras the motionless gills of that wordless space
the book is made of like the journey makes itself a crack between nothing and nil
and the crack is the fable the hinge that unfastens and fastens on its
hinge but folds and unfolds double two-fold of the work where silence
peers from when a speck of dust in the eye of silence is fable and the speck is my
wreck is my risk is this book that i risk and the fable like a speck like a spiral
bait where the speck gets stuck in the hook of silence a handbook of voids
traversed by the void what i mostly see here on this paper is the silent
blank white cornea of nothingness that is the stagnant all and the factory
of letters typewritten letters like mud oozing but beneath is the silence
of the blank untouched that darktype letters deny disguise disavow
and why write why surrender and render the white like shifts of black and the black
like shifts of white that daynightshift turning of emptiness and
full of silence and speech of speech and defeat the scorpion stings its nail on
itself initselfpoisons adversely in reverse but the text resists the text
replies the text replicates its front disperses its back it’s already text
what i mostly see here is the unseen of seeing which is reviewed and revised so
it can’t be in view but which is seen one can see that cardiac cavity of the blank
which whitens the writing of writing and i livingwrite scribealive
Haroldo de Campos: from Galáxias, 2 poems & an author’s note
begin to release and realize life begins not arrives at the end of a trip which is why i begin to respin to write-in thousand pages write thousandone pages to end write begin write beginend with writing and so i begin to respinto retrace to rewrite write on writing the future of writings's the tracing the slaving a thousandone nights in a thousandone pages or a page in one night the same nights the same pages same resemblance resemblance reassemblance where the end is begin where to write about writing's not writing about not writing and so i begin to unspin the unknown unbegun and trace me a book where all's chance and perchance all a book maybe maybe not a travel navelof-the-world book a travel navelof-the-book world where tripping's the book and its being's the trip and so i begin since the trip is beguine and i turn and return since the turning's respinning beginning realizing a book is its sense every page is its sense every line of a page every word of a line is the sense of the line of the page of the books which essays any book an essay of essays of the book which is why the begin ends begins and end spins and re-ends and refines and retunes the fine funnel of the begunend spun into de runend in the end of the beginend refines the refined of the final where it finishes beginnish reruns and returns and the finger retraces a thousandone stories an incey wince-story and so count of no account i don't recount the nonstory uncounts me discounts me the reverse of the story is snot can be rot maybe story depends on the moment the glory depends on the now and the never on although and no-go and nowhere and noplace and nihil and nixit and zero and zilch-it and never can nothing be all can be all can be total sum total surprising summation of sumptuous assumption and here i respin i begin to project my echo the wreck oh recurrent echo of the echoing blow the hollows of moreaus the marrow that's beyonder the over the thisaway thataway everywhere neverwhere overhere overthere forward more backward less there in reverse vice verse prosa converse i begin i respin verse begin vice respin so that summated story won't consume consummate saltimbocca bestride me barebackboneberide me begin the beguine of the trip where the travel's the marvel the scrabble's the marble the vigil's the travel the trifle the sparkle the embers of fable discount into nothing account for the story since spinning beginning i'm speaking
[Translated from Portuguese by Suzanne Jill Levine (from a basic version by Jon Tolman)]
i close conclude echo here i stand here i stop zero done i don't sing i don't tell i don't want i night i unspring rid myself in the end of this book in this flighti soar spider and fly mineral and mine string in tune a psaltery muse nomorenomore i play out of tune i played fair i played right in this thirst i unsalt i unstart i conclude enclose myself in the end of the world the book ends the bottom the end the book the fate no trace remains no sequel no game of checkers or chess hopscotch blindman's buff ticktacktoe the world ends the book ends love unfeathers and fades the hand moves the table turns truth is the same as lies fiction filament of shears and lyre and the entire mind filled with sapphires and motherofpearl missing the mark singing the bird inside where his song is in tune and his blade more a tongue while the tongue more a blade here i split bay and voice a knotless point against the grain where i sang no more i sing where the summer i make winter a trip turnaroundtrip goingbeyond i echo i don't tell i don't sing i don't want i unbound my book my note-book mirrorbook of mine say of the book that i write in the end of the first book and if in the end of this one another is already messenger of the new the last since even in the first is done slavescribe inkpotman monster old gay storyteller of baloneylegends here you end here you collapse cave in abracadabracrumble open sesame sevenstars each of the sevenkeys sealing near to you next to you next to nothing youvoice youthreevariants your gay science oldplusold teller of words of fibs of proverbs hum of voices you resist false wolf-crier sharp envoy-er in the habit of customs and accustomed to habits youyouryouwithme withuswithyou contingenst est quod potest esse et non esse all ends up in a book rivermouth in that voice in that you of the book that jumps in flows about and waterfalls at the end of that road one does not return from because not going is a turn a return a retrip that turns around because not going is a turn because not going returns the retrip that is made from winding made from wind from stoppage from mirage quillburlap from weavable weavery gaymonster gabby gossiper gulping downyour most garrulous solo here you collapse in this book-end where speechcurdles the hand tremblesthe ship docks bluegreen master oldoldmanword chewer word spender word bender of slack words here you end here you trip and stumble wisecrack knower of nors with your savoir gay your riddles and your swirls your puzzles and your pillage pilferer of fables counterfeiter of fairies loquaciousloon burpboaster burpbrag brewer of science refiner of folly but your soul will be saved your soul is cleansed in that book that's bleached like the whitest star and when you vanish it will devour you when you lock the key it multiopens when you eliminate it it transluminates this dead tongue this ill-starred luck the umbilichord that stuck me to the door for the book is your old port mabuse faustianfaust of language persecuted by yourmephistofamished faithful and thus you made it thus you weaved it thusyou gave it and avrà quasi l'ombra della vera costellazione while themind quasi-rainbow edens in this multibook and della doppia danza
[Translated from Portuguese by Odile Cisneros with Suzanne Jill Levine]
THE FOLLOWING NOTE BY HAROLDO DE CAMPOS (1929-2003), CONCERNING HIS MASTERWORK GALAXIAS [GALAXIES]
now, you will say, to hear galáxias:
I began the galáxias in 1963, and I finished them in 1976. Not counting the episodic publications in the review Invenção, numbers 4 (1964) and 5 (1966-67); the translation of a few fragments into German (1966), French (1970), Spanish (1978), and English (1976, 1981), and the first gathering of galactic texts in Chess of Stars (Xadrez de estrelas, São Paulo, Perspectiva, 1976), only in 1984 was I able to see my project materialize in functionally adequate conditions thanks to Frederico Nasser's publishing house, Editora Ex Libris. This publication was in a large format, had reading visibility, the verso pages were blank, functioning as an intermittent silence or pause and completing the programmatic total of 100 pages.
An audiovidoetext, videotextogram, the galáxias situate themselves on the border between prose and poetry. In this kaleidoscopic book there's an epic, narrative gesture—mini-stories that articulate and dissolve themselves like the "suspense" of a detective novel (Anatol Rosenfeld); but the image remains, the vision or calling of the epiphanic. In that sense, it is the poetic pole that ends up prevailing in the project, and the result is 50 "galactic cantos," with a total of more than 2000 verses (close to 40 per page). This permutational book has, as its semantic backbone, a recurrent yet always varied theme all along: travel as a book and the book as travel (despite the fact that—for that very reason—it is not exactly a "travel book"…). Two formants, in italics, the initial one (beginning-end: "and here I begin") and the final one (end-beginning-new beginning), encompass the game of moveable pages, interchangeable in their reading, where each isolated fragment introduces its "difference," but contains, in itself, like a watermark, the image of the entire book. which can be seen as from Alephic vantagepoint.
The oralization of the galáxias was always implicit in my project. […] As it will be seen (as it will be heard), this is a book to be read aloud, proposing a rhythm and a prosody, whose "obscure" passages become transparent to reading and whose words, when pronounced, can acquire a talismanic force, incite and seduce like mantras. Not accidentally I invited the poet and musician Alberto Marsicano to accompany me on his sitar while I read the two formants (highlighted in this way): the mobility of Indian ragas, where what is random is controlled by structures of repetition, rhymes with my score-text. Furthermore, only a few referential clues are sufficient to illuminate the galactic journey. With regard to the words and phrases in other languages—always carrying a mantric, 'transmental,' value even when not always apprehensible on a semantic level—those words and phrases are usually translated or glossed in the context, in this way flowing along and into the rhythm of the whole
K. David Jackson: Traveling in Haroldo de Campos's Galáxias: A Guide and Notes for the Reader
Haroldo de Campos (1929–2003) taught literary theory at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica, in São Paulo for most of his life and published several volumes on translation theory and on Brazilian and international literature. He was a prolific translator who introduced the work of many foreign poets to Brazil, beginning in the early 1950s with Ezra Pound, and most recently Charles Bernstein. His last work of translation, Homer's Iliad, has been published in two volumes by Mandarim in Brazil.
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