João Maimona

POEMA PARA CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE

Language: portuguese
Translations: german (GEDICHT FÜR CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE)

POEMA PARA CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE
No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra

É útil redizer as coisas
as coisas que tu não viste
no caminho das coisas
no meio do teu caminho.

Fechaste os teus dois olhos
ao bouquet das palavras
que estava a arder na ponta do caminho
o caminho que esplende os teus dois olhos.

Anuviaste a linguagem de teus olhos
diante da gramática da esperança
escrita com as manchas de teus pés descalços
ao percorrer o caminho das coisas.

Fechaste os teus dois olhos
aos ombros do corpo do caminho
e apenas viste uma pedra
no meio do caminho.

No caminho doloroso das coisas.

© João Maimona
From: Traço de União
Luanda: União dos Escritores Angolanos, 1987
Audio production: 2008 Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

João Maimona

photo © Heiko Strunk
* 08.10.1955, Quibocolo, Angola
lives in: Luanda, Angola
The poet João Maimona (born 1955 in Angola) fled as a child to Zaïre, whilst Angola was practically in a state of civil war in the years before the 1975 Declaration of Independence. He started studying humanities in Kinshasa, returning to Angola in 1976 to complete his degree in veterinary medicine. He is a member of Angola's National Assembly and from 1993 to 2000 was President of the Parliamentary Commission for Education, Science and Technology and Director of the National Veterinary Research Institute (IIV). He also teaches at the Universidade Agostinho Neto in Luanda.

photo © Heiko Strunk
Maimona is part of the generation of the 80s and 90s in Angolan poetry, whose verse is characterised by experiments with language. The Spanish literary critic Xosé Lois Garcia sees this as a precursor to postmodernism in Angolan poetry. Thematically, Maimona's poems reveal a tension between the aesthetic search for beauty and the pain of memory, which is revived in a dialogue between the senses and the wounds of the past.

Maimona's most recent poetry collection is O Sentido do Regresso e a Alma do Barco (2007).
Publications

  • Trajetória Obliterada

    Luanda: INALD, 1984

  • Traço de União

    Luanda: União dos Escritores Angolanos, 1987

  • As abelhas do dia

    Luanda: União dos Escritores Angolanos, 1988

  • Quando se ouvir o Sino das Sementes

    Luanda: União dos Escritores Angolanos, 1993

  • Idade das palavras

    Luanda: INALD, 1997

  • Festa de monarquia

    Luanda: Kilombelombe, 2001

  • Lugar e origem da beleza

    Luanda: Kilombelombe, 2003

  • O Sentido do Regresso e a Alma do Barco

    Luanda: Kilombelombe, 2007

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