Project brings together life and work At first Brazilian publishing haiku

Helena Kolody received the title of haikuist in 1993, along with the name Reika, translated as 'perfume of literature'

The poetic perfume of Helena Kolody (1912-2004), the first woman to publish haikus in Brazil, is once again spreading its scent. The daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, born in Cruz Machado, Paraná, who spent most of her life as a teacher in Curitiba, has her work re-released in print and online. The first fragrance is the small, delicate book reika, presented at this year's Paraty International Literary Festival (Flip) and which was the theme of a meeting held at the Institute of Language Studies (IEL) at Unicamp in early August.

The unpublished book will be released in the coming months. Appassionata and a website (helenakolody.art) that will bring together her life and work. The project is the result of an initiative by her great-nephew and PhD in history, Eduardo Kolody, a research fellow at Unicamp, whose research is conducted in the collection of the University's Center for Integration, Documentation, and Cultural Diffusion (Ciddic). The author also has an official Instagram page (@helenakolodyoficial).

Heir to his legacy, Eduardo Kolody says that his great-aunt, with whom he was very close, received the title of haikuist and the name “reika", in recognition of her work. The term, composed of two ideograms, can be translated as "scent of literature" or "aroma of the greatest poet." "[This term] suggests something like a perfume that spreads in the air, whose scent is poetry. An essence of poetry," she explains.

reika, originally published in 1993, has now been reissued by Laboratório Gráfico Arte & Letra, in a limited edition. The handmade book features a Japanese-style binding and illustrations by Guilherme Petreca. "The cover is covered in fabric in the same blue as the ceremonial garment Helena wore when she received her grant," says Kolody, who has been managing her great-aunt's collection since 2018. "I like the coincidence that her initials are HK. In addition to haikus, the book also features tancas, which have the same structure as haiku, but with two additional verses, each with seven syllables," she explains.

Marcos Lopes, a professor in the IEL Literary Theory Department, emphasizes the importance of the event about the author. "At IEL, we want to provide access to a wide range of authors, fostering an openness to works that speak to our sensibilities. Helena Kolody was an exceptional poet," he explains.

pioneer

The author published her first poem, “A Lágrima”, in 1928, in the magazine The boy. She always liked poetry and cited Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861) as one of her influences, considered the founder of modern Ukrainian literature and whom her mother read to her when she was a child.

In 1941, influenced by Guilherme de Almeida (1890-1969) from Campinas—considered the main promoter in Brazil of that concise form of poetry that came from the other side of the world—she published her first book, Paisagem Interior, with 45 poems, including three haikus. They are:

The haiku, a short poem of just three lines, totaling 17 syllables, has no title in its original form in Japan. Haiku, in ideogram, is written in a single vertical column. But in Brazil, poems with three lines—the first and third with five syllables and the second line with seven—are indeed given a title to, in a sense, "prepare the reader."

In 1949, Fanny Luíza Dupré (1911-1996) from Paranapiacaba, São Paulo, became the first Brazilian to publish a book exclusively of haikus in Brazil, entitled Petals in the Wind. Kolody and Dupré were friends who communicated through letters and exchanged reading recommendations. Four years earlier, Kolody had released her second book, Submerged Music, with one of his most famous haikus, “Pereira em Flor”:

In an interview, the author spoke about the inspiration for this haiku: "One night, as I was leaving a friend's house, I came across that pear tree in full bloom, bathed in the light of a full moon. The beauty of the painting had an impact on my feelings. I wrote the poem much later. I associated the pear tree with a bride: the bride dressed all in white, dreaming, with the pear tree in the moonlight."

For the heir, his great-aunt didn't always follow the traditional haiku format. "I believe she developed her own poetic form. I see in her work a contemplative poetry, in which it's easy to separate day from night." According to the historian, Helena Kolody became more concise over time. "When I least expect it, and on the most unexpected occasions, I begin to dream up words," said the author, who found her motivation in sketching out ideas that were later transformed into poems. "Helena had a habit of writing a lot. She commented on the books she read and saved her writings. Even today, going through her collection, I find texts that remained unpublished," she reveals.

"In the past, I used to pour myself into words. One day, Dr. Andrade Muricy, a Paraná native who was an art critic in Rio de Janeiro, advised me: 'You're much better at short poems. You want to make them longer, and sometimes you dilute the poem or repeat yourself. You have a talent for synthesis.' From then on, I began cutting out the excess, leaving only the essence, the essential," the author recounted in one of the notebooks in the collection.

Carlos Drummond de Andrade, who followed her career, often wrote her letters. In 1980, he praised her: "You master the art of expressing the maximum in the minimum, and with such meditative sensitivity!" Something similar happened with Cecília Meireles, with whom she corresponded for several years. Some of these letters, in fact, can be seen in the virtual museum on the website dedicated to the poet.

Virtues of the flower

Besides Kolody, only one other Brazilian has been awarded the title of haikuist: Alice Ruiz, widow of Paulo Leminski (1944-1989), honored in this edition of Flip. Ruiz, who received the haiku name “Yuuka,” explains that the Ka of reika and Yuuka means flower. The prefixes Rei and Yuu are adjectives, specific virtues of the flower, which point to forms of greatness in those who practice minimal poetry. "Helena and Paulo were neighbors in Curitiba," says Eduardo Kolody. "Without a doubt, their closeness was important in their literary and emotional production. Helena never married or had children, and Leminski called her mother."

In a 1986 talk show, in which Leminski and Ruiz were the interviewers, the author recalled her journey. "Writers and critics simply ignored this poetry that no one was yet writing. However, my students, especially female students, probably because they were very young, and young people love new things, really liked it."

"I only returned to haiku when Leminski, my neighbor, discovered me," the author said. Living in the São Bernardo Building in Curitiba in the 1960s, Kolody had already published ten books, and Leminski was 20 years old. Both were teachers, children of Eastern European immigrants (Leminski was of Polish descent), and passionate about Eastern culture. "In fact, she never stopped writing haiku. There's even a haiku titled 'Clay' in the book…" Short Life, from 1964, before the first meeting with Leminski. I believe it was she who showed haikus to Leminski,” adds the historian.

In July 1985, Leminski, in a column published in the newspapers Gazeta do Povo e FSP, entitled “Santa Helena Kolody”, celebrated the launch of Always WordAt 73, it was the first time Kolody had published a work through a publisher, Criar, in Curitiba, after 11 books published on her own. “The patron saint of poetry in Curitiba has just performed another miracle,” she wrote. “It’s called Always Word, is only 50 pages long and includes about 40 short poems. But it has enough light to illuminate this city for an entire year […] Something in Helena's poetry and life, in the product and process, reminds me of the gaucho Mario Quintana: the same purity, the same dedication, the same simplicity, the same sanctity. But Helena is leaner, faster, more haiku than the master from Porto Alegre: Helena reaches the goal with fewer touches of the ball. Peripheral like Quintana, Helena spent all these years somewhat untouched by the new developments that were swarming in the Rio-São Paulo region, an alchemist diving alone to the essence of her lyrical work, until the moment when, as she says, 'the carbon awakens diamond.'

Kolody continued to receive tributes, despite being little known outside the Rio-São Paulo region. In 1992, Paraná filmmaker Sylvio Back presented the short film The Babel of Light, in honor of the author's 80th birthday, in a work awarded for best short film and best editing at the 25th edition of the Brasília Festival of Brazilian Cinema. Elected to the Paraná Academy of Letters at the age of 80 and the second woman admitted to that exclusive male circle, Kolody received, in 2003, the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), months before her death in 2004.

In addition to haikus, the author maintained a vast production of poems. Her great-nephew reveals that the author suffered a profound disappointment in love, which marked her forever and, as a result, she never married. This unfulfilled love, of course, yielded many verses. She dedicated at least 60 poems to her failure in love. And, in the collection Poems of Impossible Love, in 2002, when he celebrated his 90th birthday, he published:

An event marked her life: a young woman, contemplating suicide, opened the book the author had given her, read the poem entitled "Prayer," and gave up on seeking death. Later, the poem received two musical versions and began to be treated as a prayer upon receiving the imprimatur of the Catholic Church in 1966, a distinction that allows it to be printed and read as a prayer, a distinction granted by the Archbishop of Curitiba at the time, Dom Manuel da Silveira d'Elboux. The author also received a notebook with the translation of "Prayer" into more than 20 languages.