Traveling through Portugal this summer I visited Lisbon for the first time. Strange to have missed such a major European site for so many years. Miles & I wandered about the city, a many-hilled place by a major river delta – i.e. the perfect location for a city – for an afternoon & an an evening. A poet’s city, if ever there was one!
The Café A Brasileira is situated on a little square named after a poet (Largo do Chiado), edged by a street named after a poet (Garrett) and from the square you can see up to another square, also named for a poet, Camoes.
Statue is that of Chiado on square named after him
A Brasileira is the most famous old literary café in Lisbon, because this is where Fernando Pessoa (& probably all his heteronyms too) used to hold court. You can sit with him even today: there is an empty bronze chair part of the sculpture of Pessao set right among the chairs and tables of the café’s outdoors terrace.
Sat there for a long time, trying to borrow some of the vibes. As night fell we walked on, checking out the amazing freestanding tower that is simply an elevator to help you get to the higher level of the town without having to use up your legs climbing the hill.
Before turning in I went back to whisper some words of admiration into Pessoa’s ear.
St Marks Poetry Project, 131 E. 10th Street, New York, NY 10003
Saturday, November 23
Poetry Reading
Tucson POG/Chax (details to be announced)
ABOUT
Pierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946, was raised in Luxembourg. Since age 18, he has moved between Europe, the Maghreb & the US & holds both Luxembourg & American citizenship. He has published over 80 books of poetry, essays, translations & anthologies — most recently Interglacial Narrows (Poems 1915-2021) & Always the Many, Never the One: Conversations In-between, with Florent Toniello, both from Contra Mundum Press. In 2020 his two final Paul Celan translations came out: Microliths They Are, Little Stones (Posthumous prose, from CMP) & The Collected Earlier Poetry (FSG). Forthcoming are: Paul Celan’s “Todesfuge” (Small Orange Import, 2023) & Diwan of Exiles: A Pierre Joris Reader (edited with Ariel Reznikoff, 2024). For a full list see the right column on this blog.
In 2011 Litteraria Pragensia, Charles University, Prague, published Pierre Joris: Cartographies of the In-between, edited by Peter Cockelbergh, with essays on Joris’ work by, among others, Mohammed Bennis, Charles Bernstein, Nicole Brossard, Clayton Eshleman, Allen Fisher, Christine Hume, Robert Kelly, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Jennifer Moxley, Jean Portante, Carrie Noland, Alice Notley, Marjorie Perloff & Nicole Peyrafitte (2011).
Other work includes the CD Routes, not Roots (with Munir Beken, oud; Mike Bisio, bass; Ben Chadabe, percussion; Mitch Elrod, guitar; Ta’wil Productions). With Jerome Rothenberg he edited Poems for the Millennium, vol. 1 & 2: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry, and with Habib. Tengour Poems for the Millennium, vol. 3: The University of California Book of North African Literature.
When not on the road, he lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with his wife, multimedia praticienne Nicole Peyrafitte. A volume of their collaborative work, to be called Domopoetics, will be published in the near future.
& Fernando whispers back, “Now ashen grey tinges the balding brow…”
So glad poets are so recognized in Lisbon.
DWx
Porto is great too, Pierre — did you manage a visit?