Souvenir of the Ancient World
Clara strolled in the garden with the children.The sky was green over the grass,the water was golden under the bridges,other elements were blue and rose and orange,a policeman smiled, bicycles passed,a girl stepped onto the lawn to catch a bird,the whole world—Germany, China—all was quiet around Clara.The children looked at the sky: it was not forbidden.Mouth, nose, eyes were open. There was no danger.What Clara feared were the flu, the heat, the insects.Clara feared missing the eleven o'clock trolley:She waited for letters slow to arrive,She couldn't always wear a new dress. But she strolled in the garden, in the morning!They had gardens, they had mornings in those days!
Until further notice Poetry Daily will devote Wednesdays to What Keeps Us, an impromptu series featuring poems that sustain and uplift through trying times. Each poem is accompanied with an image by author-illustrator Juana Medina (http://www.juanamedina.com). We thank you for reading and hope that you will share poems with your friends and neighbors. Please be well.
Feature Date
- August 12, 2020
Series
- Translation
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
“Souvenir of the Ancient World” by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, translated by Mark
Strand;
from LOOKING FOR POETRY: POEMS BY CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE AND RAFAEL ALBERTI AND SONGS FROM THE QUECHUA by Mark Strand, copyright © 2002 by Mark Strand.
Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
All rights reserved
Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987) was born in a small town in Minas Gerais, Brazil. While he spent most of his life working as a government bureaucrat, he regarded poetry as his true vocation, and his first book was published in 1930. During six decades of writing, his work went through many phases, transcending styles and schools while being strongly influenced by modernism.
In a New York Times review, Dwight Garner writes that Andrade “is widely considered the greatest poet in the history of Brazil.”
Mark Strand (1934-2014) was the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Man and Camel (2006) and Blizzard of One (1998), which won the Pulitzer Prize. He also published books of prose and several volumes of translation, including works by Rafael Alberti and Carlos Drummond de Andrade, among others. He was the Poet Laureate of the United States in 1990.
"A collection of poetry translated by Mark Strand, Looking for Poetry: Poems by Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Rafael Alberti and Songs from the Quechua includes (though twice-removed, via Andrade's Portuguese and Alberti's Spanish) the incantatory verse of the Quechua Indians, who live in Peru and Bolivia. Andrade (1902-1987), a Brazilian-born modernist who began writing in the 1920s, remains one of the best-known Portuguese-language poets. Alberti (1902-1999), a Spaniard exiled to Argentina during the Civil War, elaborates the twin themes of nostalgia and displacement."
—Publishers Weekly
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
