Um polyhedron of possibilities

Book revisits the dialogue between rigor and chance in the life and poetic work of Paulo Leminski

Um polyhedron of possibilities

Book revisits the dialogue between rigor and chance in the life and poetic work of Paulo Leminski

The book Steel in Bloom: The poetry of Paulo Leminski is an in-depth study of the multiple faces of the poet from Curitiba, a study in which Fabrício Marques identifies a dialogue between rigor and chance. The book, published by Editora da Unicamp in co-edition with Editora UFMG, was first published in 2001 and, revised and expanded, in 2024.

Marques graduated in communications from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) and holds a master's degree in literary theory and a doctorate in comparative literature from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). As a journalist and literary critic, he has collaborated with important periodicals, such as FSP. He also worked as a teacher and was among the finalists for the Jabuti Prize and the Portugal Telecom Prize with his book of poems. The incomplete beast.

At work Steel in Bloom, the author seeks to map the meanings and references mobilized by Leminski in the construction of his poetry. Thus, tropicalism, Japanese haiku, advertising, concretism and semiotics come into play. From the confluence and dialogue between these different worldviews arises Leminskian poetics, in an eternal dispute between reason and intuition. In the following interview, Marques comments on the new edition of the work and gives details about this process.

Jornal da Unicamp – How did the process of revising the work for this new edition come about?

Fabricio Marques – It was a pleasurable process, motivated by the poet’s 80th birthday, which took place on August 24. The first edition came out in 2001. In the 23-year period leading up to the reissue, I confess that I left Leminski a little “to one side,” because, in addition to being a researcher, I am a journalist and a professor, and other demands and agendas arose along the way. But everything we read that is important remains indelibly engraved in us. When I reread the book to prepare the new edition, I naturally came back into contact with Leminski’s poems and other texts and once again found myself faced with a multiple, thought-provoking work, always under construction. To top it all off, the fact that it was a co-edition by Editora da Unicamp and Editora UFMG is something that made me very happy, because I greatly admire both publishers.

JU – What’s new for the reader?

Fabricio Marques – The new edition was revised, with a rewriting process that maintained the original structure, but added passages that reinforced this structure. For example, when trying to define the concept of “chance”, I included a passage about serendipity, something missing from the first edition. In addition, a previously unpublished text was added, “The radical adventure of Paulo Leminski”, written especially for this reissue. Two texts that I published over the last few years also became part of the book: “Convergences with advertising”, which is in the book The line that never ends: Thinking about Paulo Leminski (org. André Dick and Fabiano Calixto, Lamparina, 2005), and “Ler, desler, contraler: convergências com Augusto de Campos”, from 2011. Finally, there is an appendix presenting an interview I did with the Argentine essayist Mario Cámara, translator of the poet, and a chronology of Leminski’s life and work. In other words, many new features, which make this reissue almost a new book.

JU – How important is this publication for Paulo Leminski’s critical fortune?

Fabricio Marques – The other day I was talking to a friend, Guilhermino Domiciano, who studied theater at Unicamp, and we discussed how we are increasingly interested in understanding what it means to be Brazilian. How the classic works of Joaquim Nabuco, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda and Raymundo Faoro, among many others, help us understand the country, in its network of extremes, between inequalities and privileges. But poetry also helps us in this search for understanding. What does it mean to be Brazilian? Is Brazilian poetry different from the country in which it is produced? And Leminski’s poetry – a productive, restless, multiple volcano – can help answer this question. Between the lines of Steel in Bloom, I seek to bring this to light, by explaining the author's wide range of interests reflected in a polyhedral face, his political-existential vision of poetry, his way of articulating the game between chance and rigor – in the context of a production that took place, for the most part, during the military dictatorship in Brazil.

JU – How do you see the reception of Leminski’s work today? Is he still a poet of reference for new generations?

Fabricio Marques – Maria Esther Maciel, who wrote the foreword to Steel in Bloom, highlighted in another text that Leminski, “among the poets of his generation, was perhaps the most in tune with the demands of a new cultural scenario, choosing as his privileged raw material a present – ​​understood as a moving point of temporal confluences, a kind of synchronic present”. This fact, added to the poet’s personal project of creating in the zone between communication and information, that is, of experimenting with a mix between production poetry – a break with tradition, inventive avant-garde – and consumer poetry – pop appeal –, helps to understand Leminski’s connection with the new generations. Expressing himself from a place, this synchronic present, and handling verses between “rare and trivial” references, in the poet’s words, his poetry has spoken directly to the hearts and minds of readers.

Title: Steel in Bloom
Author: Fabricio Marques
New edition, revised and expanded
Year: 2024
Pages: 200
Dimensions: 14 cm x 21 cm