Manoel de Barros was a Brazilian modernist writer belonging to the third modernist generation, called “Geração de 45”.
He is considered one of the greatest Brazilian poets, who has been awarded several literary awards.
The “Jabuti Award” that he received twice with the works stands out: the water keeper (1989) and the dawn maker (2002).
Biography of Manoel de Barros
Manoel Wenceslau Leite Barros was born in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, on December 19, 1916.
He spent his childhood in his hometown where his father, João Venceslau Barros, had a farm in the Pantanal.
As a teenager, he moved to Campo Grande where he studied at an Intern College.
He graduated in Law in Rio de Janeiro. There he joined the Communist Party and because of Luis Carlos Prestes' support for Getúlio Vargas, he became disillusioned with politics and left the party.
Although since he was little he wrote poems, it was in 1937 that Manoel published his first work: Poems conceived without sin.
He even lived in other countries: Bolivia, Peru and New York. In the United States, he took a course in fine arts and film.
He lived there for a year and upon returning met his future wife, Stella. They married in 1947 and had three children with her: Pedro, João and Marta.
His son João died in a plane crash in 2008. In 2013, her first-born Pedro was the victim of a stroke and also died.
Manoel de Barros died in Campo Grande, on November 13, 2014, aged 97 years.
Works by Manoel de Barros
With a simple, colloquial, avant-garde and poetic language, Manoel de Barros wrote about themes such as everyday life and nature.
Many of his poems received a touch of surrealism, where the oneiric universe rules. In addition, he created several neologisms.
Some of his works were published in Portugal, Spain, France and the United States, the main ones being:
- Poems conceived without sin (1937)
- The immobile face (1942)
- Poetry (1956)
- Compendium for Use of Birds (1960)
- Floor expository grammar (1966)
- The Keeper of the Waters (1989)
- Book about nothing (1996)
- The Dawn Maker (2001)
- General treatise on the magnitudes of the lowest (2001)
- Rock poems (2004)
- Invented Memories I (2005)
- Invented Memories II (2006)
- Invented Memories III (2007)
- Complete poetry (2010)
- Doors by Pedro Viana (2013)
Poems by Manoel de Barros
To learn more about the poet's language, check out three poems below:
the waste catcher
I use the word to compose my silences.
I don't like the words
tired of informing.
I give more respect
the ones who live on their stomachs
frog stone water type.
I understand the accent of the waters well
I respect unimportant things
and to unimportant beings.
I appreciate bugs than planes.
I appreciate speed
turtles more than missiles.
I have a birth delay in me.
I was fitted
to like birds.
I have plenty to be happy about it.
My backyard is greater than the world.
I am a waste catcher:
I love the leftovers
like the good flies.
I wanted my voice to have a shape
corner.
Because I'm not computer science:
I'm inventive.
I only use the word to compose my silences.
the book about nothing
It is easier to make a treat of foolishness than of wisdom.
Everything I don't invent is false.
There are many serious ways to say nothing, but only poetry is true.
There is more presence in me that I lack.
The best way I found to get to know myself was doing the opposite.
I'm very prepared for conflicts.
There cannot be an absence of a mouth in words: none should be left unprotected from the being who revealed them.
My dawn will be at night.
Better than naming is alluding. Verse doesn't need to give an idea.
What sustains the enchantment of a verse (in addition to the rhythm) is the illogism.
My back is more visible than a pole.
Wise is what you guess.
To be more sure I have to know about imperfections.
Inertia is my main act.
I don't even go out to fish.
Wisdom may be to be a tree.
Style is an abnormal model of expression: it is stigma.
Fish has no honors or horizons.
Whenever I want to tell something, I don't do anything; but when I don't want to say anything, I do poetry.
I wanted to be read by the stones.
Words hide me carelessly.
Where I am not, words find me.
There are stories so true that sometimes they seem to be made up.
One word opened the robe for me. She wants me to be her.
Literary therapy is about messing up language to the point that it expresses our deepest desires.
I want the word that fits in the birds' mouths.
This task of ceasing is what pulls my sentences before me.
Atheist is a person capable of scientifically proving that he is nothing. It only compares to the saints. The saints want to be the worms of God.
Best to get to nothing is to discover the truth.
The artist is nature's error. Beethoven was a perfect mistake.
Out of modesty I am impure.
White corrupts me.
I don't like used words.
My difference is always less.
Poetic word has to reach the level of a toy to be serious.
I don't need the end to arrive.
I've already left the place where I am.
the dawn maker
I am injured in machine treatments.
I have an appetite for inventing useful things.
All my life I've only engineered
3 machines
How are:
A little crank to get you to sleep.
a dawn maker
for uses of poets
And a cassava platinum for the
fordeco of my brother.
I've just won an industry award
automakers by the Platinate de Cassava.
I was hailed as an idiot by most
authorities in the delivery of the award.
So I was a bit haughty.
And the glory enthroned forever
in my existence.
Learn more about The Language of Modernism.
Phrases by Manoel de Barros
- “Poetry is flying off the wing.”
- “The very clear things night me.”
- “my independence has handcuffs.”
- “Poets and fools are made with words.”
- “My fate is to not understand almost everything. over nothing i have depths.”
Continue your research by reading the texts:
- Modernism in Brazil
- Generation of 45
