We know that poetry is a state of soul, it is the awakening of subjectivity, revealing feelings and emotions experienced by the poet.
But are we prepared to understand the essence of the message as a whole? Did the text really make a difference, or was it just words?
There is a lot to discover behind a simple stanza and a simple verse, because most of the time the poet's goal is to do a complaint, is to criticize something related to the social context, and we will only decipher all this through our knowledge of world. this is the call "Speech analysis", through it we can unveil the author's intention and make the reading in general make sense to us.
Now let's look at a poem by Ulisses Tavares, which portrays this question very well:
Beyond imagination
There are people going hungry.
And it's not the hunger you imagine
between one meal and another.
There are people feeling cold.
And it's not the cold you imagine
between the shower and the towel.
There are people who are very sick.
And it's not the disease you imagine
between the prescription and the aspirin.
There are people without hope.
And it's not the dismay you imagine
between the nightmare and the awakening.
There are people in the corners.
And it's not the corners you imagine
between the walk and the house.
There are people without money.
And it's not the fault you imagine
between the gift and the allowance.
There are people asking for help.
And it's not the one you imagine
between school and soap opera.
There are people who exist and seem
imagination
(Ulysses Tavares. São Paulo, Brasiliense, 1984.)
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Through it, we can identify a real criticism of society's ills, referring mainly to the inequality that so devastates our country today. And if we are going to analyze the title - "imagination" we will identify it with everything that was said previously, given that the real meaning of the word goes beyond what it literally represents.
By Vânia Duarte
Graduated in Letters
Brazil School Team
Literature - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
DUARTE, Vânia Maria do Nascimento. "How to “unveil” a poetic text"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/literatura/como-descortinar-um-texto-poetico.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
