Carlos Drummond de Andrade: Multitudinous Heart

Childhood

First published in December 1926.

In the Middle of the Road

In Portuguese the first four words evoke the beginning of Dante’s Inferno: “Nel mezzo del cammin.”

Written in 1924 or 1925 and first published in July 1928, this poem delighted writers and critics with modernist sympathies; it scandalized many others. And it continued to elicit reactions for years to come. In 1967 Drummond published a “biography” of the poem, which compiled all the published criticism on it that he could find. Eucanaã Ferraz brought out an expanded version of this book in 2010.

Square Dance

Published in November 1927.

Multitudinous Heart

Published in August 1925.

The Hotel Avenida, located on the Avenida Rio Branco and inaugurated in 1911, was a landmark of chic, fashionable Rio. It was built by the streetcar and electric company, and there was a streetcar terminal just opposite. The hotel’s ground floor was taken up by the Galeria Cruzeiro, a shopping arcade that included bars and restaurants. Drummond would write a long poem in homage to the hotel in 1957, the year it was demolished.

Social Notes

Published in December 1925.

The poem, whose original title is in the singular, was conceived as one of the “notes” in the Social Notes columns that were a regular feature of newspapers.

BREJO DAS ALMAS / SWAMP OF SOULS

Brejo das Almas was the name of a small municipality in Minas Gerais. Drummond presumably chose it for a title because of its literal meaning. In 1948, the municipality changed its name to Francisco Sá.

Don’t Kill Yourself

Third stanza, third line: In the original the language is directly Freudian and could be translated as “and repressed things, being sublimated.”

Confessions of a Man from Itabira

The Introduction explains the importance of iron for Itabira and the importance of Alfredo Duval for Drummond.

International Symposium on Fear

The poem was originally published under the title “Congresso Internacional de Poesia” [International Symposium on Poetry].

Family Portrait

Second stanza: Brazil became a republic in 1889.

Roll, World, Roll

This poem contains references to World War II. The Brazilian government’s policy of deactivating lighthouses to prevent further attacks from German submarines is referred to in the sixth stanza. The gas in the fourth stanza might be an allusion to the gas chambers.

May Afternoon

The custom of preserving the lower jawbones of deceased relatives was reported by the anthropologist James George Frazer, among others.

Second stanza: May is an autumn month in southern Brazil.

Make-believe Lullaby

The Portuguese title, “Cantiga de Enganar” (literally “Song that Deceives”), is a play on “cantiga de embalar,” which means cradle song, or lullaby.

The Table

First published as a chapbook, in 1951.

The poem narrates an imaginary ninetieth birthday party for Drummond’s father, who died in 1931 at the age of seventy. All of Drummond’s immediate blood relatives — parents, siblings, and offspring, alive or dead — are gathered around the table and described in turn. The deceased sister, Rosa Amélia, was born on her father’s twenty-second birthday. The oldest brother, Flaviano, remained in Itabira and followed in his father’s steps as a rancher. Altivo was the lawyer. José was the brother who never married. Drummond’s younger sister Mariinha, according to the poem, was somewhat estranged from the family. The eight “angels” were the brothers and sisters who died in infancy. The young female described as “my best or only verse” was Drummond’s daughter, Maria Julieta, born in 1928. Drummond’s mother, Julieta Augusta Drummond, died in 1948 at the age of seventy-eight.

FAZENDEIRO DO AR / FARMER IN THE CLOUDS

“Farmer ( or Rancher) of the Air” would be a more literal rendering of the Portuguese title. Drummond’s biographer reported that he first used the expression in a letter to the Brazilian fiscal authorities, protesting the high tax levied on agricultural land that belonged to him but that earned him little or no money. He was not a wealthy fazendeiro da terra (farmer of the land), he explained, but a mere fazendeiro do ar (farmer of the air), then living in Belo Horizonte.

Green Library

The original English-language edition of the Library (described in the Introduction to this book) was published in 1898, in twenty volumes. The edition in Portuguese, which reordered the original selections and added a generous amount of Brazilian and Portuguese writing, was produced in Portugal but distributed in Brazil, from 1912 on. One of the translators for the massive project was Fernando Pessoa, still unknown and practically unpublished.

Second stanza: Drummond’s father was not a military colonel. The title Coronel was (and is sometimes still) conferred on wealthy landowners or political bosses in the Brazilian interior. Colonel has been used in a similar way in some Southern states.

Andrade, Carlos Drummond de. Alguma poesia — o livro em seu tempo. Ed. Eucanaã Ferraz. São Paulo: Instituto Moreira Salles, 2010.

——. Antologia poética. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012 (1st ed. 1962).

——. A rosa do povo. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012 (1st ed. 1945).

——. As impurezas do branco. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012 (1st ed. 1973).

——. A vida passada a limpo. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2013 (1st ed. 1959).

——. Brejo das Almas. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2013.

——. Claro enigma. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012 (1st ed. 1951).

——. Fazendeiro do ar. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012 (1st ed. 1954).

——. In the Middle of the Road: Selected Poems. Trans. John Nist. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1965.

——. José. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012 (1st ed. 1942, in Poesias ).

——. Lição de coisas. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012 (1st ed. 1962).

——. Nova reunião: 23 livros de poesia, in 3 volumes. Rio de Janeiro: BestBolso, 2009.

——. Poesia 1930–62. Ed. Júlio Castañon Guimarães. São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2012. Critical edition of Drummond’s first ten collections of poetry.

——. Sentimento do mundo. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012 (1st ed. 1940).

——. The Minus Sign. Trans. Virginia de Araújo. Manchester: Carcanet New Press, 1981.

——. Travelling in the Family: Selected Poems. Ed. Thomas Colchie and Mark Strand. Trans. Thomas Colchie and Mark Strand, with Elizabeth Bishop and Gregory Rabassa. New York: Random House, 1986.

——. Uma pedra no meio do caminho: biografia de um poema. Expanded edition compiled by Eucanaã Ferraz. São Paulo: Instituto Moreira Salles, 2010.

Bosi, Alfredo. “‘A máquina do mundo’ entre o símbolo e a alegoria.” In Céu, inferno: ensaios de crítica literária e ideológica. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2003.

Cançado, José Maria. Os sapatos de Orfeu: biografia de Carlos Drummond de Andrade. São Paulo: Scritta, 1993. A number of biographical details for my Introduction were drawn from this work.

Neto, Geneton Moraes. O dossiê Drummond. São Paulo: Editora Globo, 2nd ed., 1994. Contains a transcription of the last interview with Carlos Drummond.

Sant’Anna, Affonso Romano de. Drummond: o gauche no tempo, 5th ed. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, 2008 (1st ed. 1972).