Expansive Poetics – 19 (Fernando Pessoa – 4)

January 23, 2014admin

nautical phrases The major poem, or what is considered the major poem (of Fernando Pessoa) was too long to include (in the anthology), it’s about a thirty-page shot, called “Maritime Ode”,  (Ode Marítima) about standing on the dock, looking out into space. Let’s see.. And he also gets into sound – “Ahò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò – yyy… Schooner ahò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-ò-oò -yyy…” –  he gets funny.. Let’s see if I can find that page, and he begins playing with the typeface. It’s an enormous long thing..  [Allen quotes from Pessoa’s “Maritime Ode] – “To be on with all those crimes, to be part … Read More

Expansive Poetics – 18 (Fernando Pessoa – 3)

January 22, 2014admin

[Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) aged 26, in 1914]

Allen’s observations on Fernando Pessoa continue 

AG:  ….like in Whitman. This [Fernando Pessoa’s “Poem in a Straight Line”]  is parallel to the line that he [Walt Whitman] has, “These are the thoughts of all men in all ages.” And that’s a great declaration of Whitman – “These thoughts are not my own but these are the thoughts of all men in all times in all ages. And the next poem (of Pessoa’s) begins, “Tobacco Shop” (Tabacaria) – “I am nothing/That’s all I’ll ever be/Nothing with no willpower to be … Read More

Expansive Poetics 17 – Fernando Pessoa – 2

January 21, 2014admin

  

[Portrait of Fernando Pessoa by Almada Negreiros, 1954]

AG: “I’m going to take off my tie!”…

Student: Wow, he was a pretty restricted guy!..

AG: Yes, but in his imagination, Whitmanic… but funnier than Whitman, in a way. It’s a parody of  Whitman. It’s taking Whitman up on his word totally and taking it to such a total extreme that Whitman becomes a reductio ad absurdum. And, at the same time, it gives us the same sentimental good wil, charm, humane imagination, tolerance, amusement as Whitman. Just taking Whitman further and becoming a Whitman-freak, a Whitman fanatic, taking … Read More

Expansive Poetics – 16 (Fernando Pessoa – 1)

January 20, 2014admin

File:CCI00768.jpg [ [Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935)]

 

Allen’s lecture from June 1981 on “Expansive Poetics” continues

AG: (Walt Whitman) – What sort of response did he get? This (Leaves of Grass, first edition) is 1855. What I would like to do now is jump ahead in time. (we might come back to Whitman, but we have (as base) his main statement of self as extendible). Then there was Fernando Pessoa, who was born in Lisbon on June 13, 1888, and died in 1935, during the great world depression. In Lisbon, he read Walt Whitman, and, around World War … Read More

Expansive Poetics – 12 (Walt Whitman – 1)

January 13, 2014admin

Walt Whitman
AG: With (Walt) Whitman what I want to do is.. With Whitman I thought now we’re getting into the heart of the 20th Century expansion and expansiveness. So what I’ll do next – this class and the next class (is ) – a sequence of Whitman, followed by sons of Whitman or admirers of Whitman –  heroic poets reflecting Whitman.  So it would be Fernando Pessoa in Portugal, 1904, writing an “Ode to Walt Whitman” (Saudação a Walt Whitman), and then (Federico) Garcia Lorca
 
Student: How do you spell that?
 
AG: P-E-S-S-O-A – Fernando Pessoa. He’s the … Read More