The global riches of Portuguese
Countries across the world join for a celebration of cultural unity - and diversity
Every May 5, the Day of Portuguese Language and Culture brings countries across the world together to reforge the bonds of their shared heritage. The celebration spans the globe, linking South America with Africa, Europe with Asia.
The post-colonial feast of arts serves up poetry and prose readings, book fairs, live music performances of saba, morna and fado, and even hip-hop – all in distinctly different Portuguese accents.
The Comunidade dos Paises de Lingua Portuguesa (CPLP) – or organisation of Portuguese-speaking nations – is a community of more than 240 million people spread around the world, encompassing Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, Mozambique and Timor-Leste.
This year, to mark the occasion in Thailand, the heads of mission of CPLP countries resident in Bangkok, the ambassadors of Portugal, Brazil and Timor-Leste, have the pleasure of offering readers of The Nation a poem by Alexandre O’Neil, a renowned Portuguese poet, translated into English for this special date.
As this day celebrates the multicultural use of the very same Portuguese language, the choice could not fall on a poem reflecting just the reality of one of the eight cultures concerned. Ideally, the poem would combine the Portuguese saudade with a Brazilian samba depicted by the Timor sea, while evoking the exoticism of Sao Tome, the green, red and yellows of Mozambique, the vowels of a Cape Verde’s morna, the dazzling light of Bissau, and the spicy aromas of an Angolan late afternoon. Instead they have chosen a universal theme appropriate in commemorating a common language – the enchanting power of words and the contradictory emotions it creates. The poem is O’Neill’s “Some words seem to kiss us”.
Alexandre O’Neill (Alexandre Manuel de Castro O’Neill de Bulhoes, 1924-1986) was born in Lisbon and died there at the age of 62. A publicist by profession, and famed for creating some of the wittiest advertising slogans of his time, he was a founder of Lisbon’s surrealist movement and is one of the most renowned poets of the Portuguese language. Stridently anti-Romantic, sarcastic and concerned to “keep humanity in its place”, he was sceptical of optimists and dreams of a harmonious world, and abhorred all attempts to escape the “real” world, whether through mystical or poetical exaltations.
O’Neill is included in an anthology of poems in Portuguese already translated into Thai that the Embassy of Portugal and Instituto Camoes expect to publish in a near future.
Some Words Seem To Kiss Us
Some words seem to kiss us
As if they had a mouth.
Words of love, words of hope,
Insane hope, immense love.
Naked words that you kiss
When night covers its face,
Words that stand steadfast
Against the walls of your pain.
Suddenly became colourful
Among colourless words
Expected and unexpected
Like poetry or like love.
(The name of the one you love
Letter by letter is revealed
On the bewildered stone
On the discarded sheet)
Words that carry us
To where the night is stronger,
To the silence of the lovers
Embraced against death.
Alexandre O’Neill
(From a translation by Ana Hudson, 2012.)
