Carlos Drummond de Andrade: biography, works and poems

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Carlos Drummond de Andrade he was a Brazilian poet, storyteller and chronicler of the period of modernism.

Considered one of the greatest writers in Brazil, Drummond was part of the second modernist generation. He was the precursor of the so-called "poetry of 30" with the publication of the work "some poetry".

Biography

Carlos Drummond de Andrade was born on October 31, 1902 in Itabira do Mato Dentro, in the interior of Minas Gerais.

Descendant of a family of traditional farmers in the region, Drummond was the ninth child of the couple Carlos de Paula Andrade and Julieta Augusta Drummond de Andrade.

From an early age Carlos showed great interest in words and literature. In 1916, he joined the College in Belo Horizonte.

Two years later, he went to study at the Jesuit boarding school at Colégio Anchieta, in the interior of Rio de Janeiro, Nova Friburgo, receiving a laureate in “Certames Literários”.

In 1919, he was expelled from the Jesuit college for “mental insubordination” while arguing with the Portuguese teacher. Thus, he returned to Belo Horizonte and from 1921 onwards, he began to publish his first works in the Diário de Minas.

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He graduated in Pharmacy at the School of Dentistry and Pharmacy of Belo Horizonte, but he did not practice.

In 1925 he married Dolores Dutra de Morais, with whom he had two children, Carlos Flávio (in 1926, who lives only half an hour) and Maria Julieta Drummond de Andrade, born in 1928.

In 1926, he taught Geography and Portuguese at the Ginásio Sul-Americano de Itabira and worked as editor-in-chief of Diário de Minas.

He continued with his literary works and in 1930 published his first book entitled “some poetry”.

One of his best known poems is “Midway”. It was published in the Revista de Antropofagia de São Paulo in 1928. At the time, it was considered one of the biggest literary scandals in Brazil:

“In the middle of the way there was a stone
He had a stone in the middle of the way
had a stone
In the middle of the way there was a stone.
I will never forget this event
In the life of my retinas so tired.
I'll never forget that halfway
had a stone
He had a stone in the middle of the way
In the middle of the way there was a stone.”

He worked as a civil servant for most of his life and retired as Section Chief of DPHAN after 35 years of public service.

In 1982, at the age of 80, he received the title of “Doctor Honoris Causa” by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN).

Drummond died on August 17, 1987 in Rio de Janeiro. He died at the age of 85, a few days after the death of his daughter, the chronicler Maria Julieta Drummond de Andrade, his great companion.

Curiosities

Drummond Statue in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro

With notorious importance in Brazilian culture, Drummond is considered one of the most influential Brazilian poets of the 20th century. Some tributes to him are in the cities of Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul with the statue “two poets” and in the city of Rio de Janeiro, on Copacabana beach, the statue known as “The Thinker”.
The documentary “the seven-faced poet” (2002) portrays the life and work of Drummond. It was written and directed by Brazilian filmmaker Paulo Thiago.
Between 1988 and 1990, the image of Drummond was represented in the notes of fifty cruzados.

Fifty crossed note with the image of Drummond

Main Works

Drummond wrote poetry, prose, children's literature and performed several translations.

He has a vast work that is often marked by elements from his homeland, such as the poetry "Itabirano's Confidence”:

“Some years I lived in Itabira.
Mainly I was born in Itabira
That's why I'm sad, proud: made of iron.
Ninety percent iron on sidewalks.
Eighty percent iron in souls.
And this alienation from what in life is porosity and communication.

The desire to love, which paralyzes my work,
comes from Itabira, from its white nights, without women and without horizons.

And the habit of suffering, which amuses me so much,
it is a sweet Itabira heritage.

From Itabira I brought several gifts that I now offer you:
this iron stone, future steel of Brazil,
this Saint Benedict of the old saint-maker Alfredo Duval;
this tapir leather, laid out on the living room sofa;
this pride, this bowed head...

I had gold, I had cattle, I had farms.
Today I am a civil servant.
Itabira is just a picture on the wall.
But how it hurts!”

Some works

Some Poetry (1930)
Marsh of Souls (1934)
Feeling of the World (1940)
Confessions of Mines (1944)
The People's Rose (1945)
Poetry Until Now (1948)
The Manager (1945)
course puzzle (1951)
Apprentice's Tales (1951)
The Table (1951)
Island Tours (1952)
Pocket Viola (1952)
Air Farmer (1954)
Viola de Pocket again strung (1955)
Speak, almond tree (1957)
Cycle (1957)
Lesson of Things (1962)
Poetic Anthology (1962)
Complete Work (1964)
Rocking Chair (1966)
World Wide World (1967)
Poems (1971)
The Impurities of White (1973)
Love, Loves (1975)
The Visit (1977)
Plausible Tales (1981)
Love is learned by loving (1985)

poems

Check out a selection of Drummond's best poems below:

Seven Faces Poem

When I was born, a crooked angel
of those who live in the shade
said: Go, Carlos! be gauche in life.

houses spy on men
who run after women.
The afternoon might be blue,
there weren't so many desires.

The tram passes by full of legs:
yellow black white legs.
Why so much leg, my God, asks my heart.
but my eyes
don't ask anything.

the man behind the mustache
is serious, simple and strong.
Almost no conversation.
have few, rare friends
the man behind the glasses and mustache.

My God, why did you abandon me?
if you knew I wasn't god
if you knew I was weak.

world wide world world,
if i was called Raimundo
it would be a rhyme, it would not be a solution.
world wide world world,
wider is my heart.

I shouldn't tell you
but this moon
but this brandy
they get us moved as the devil.

Gang

João loved Teresa who loved Raimundo
who loved Maria who loved Joaquim who loved Lili,
who didn't love anyone.
João went to the United States, Teresa to the convent,
Raimundo died of disaster, Maria was left to aunt,
Joaquim committed suicide and Lili married J. Pinto Fernandes
that had not entered history.

Absence

For a long time I thought absence is lacking.
And lamented, ignorant, the lack.
Today I don't regret it.
There is no shortage in absence.
The absence is a being in me.
And I feel her, white, so close, snuggled in my arms,
that I laugh and dance and invent joyful exclamations,
because the absence, this assimilated absence,
no one steals it from me anymore.

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