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First published in the United States of America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2015

First published in Great Britain by Penguin Classics 2015

Carlos Drummond de Andrade copyright © Graña Drummond, 2015

Translation, Introduction and Notes copyright © Richard Zenith, 2015

The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted

Cover: Detail from Women and Fish; 1970, Emiliano de Cavalcanti/Private Collection/Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images

The illustration used on the part openers is from the collection of Acervo da Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa / Arquivo Museu de Literatura Brasileira. Photograph reproduction by Ailton Alexandre da Silva.

ISBN: 978-0-241-18840-8

Contents

Introduction

SOME POETRY
(1930)

Seven-sided Poem

Childhood

Lake

In the Middle of the Road

Square Dance

Multitudinous Heart

Social Notes

Purification Poem

SWAMP OF SOULS
(1934)

Sonnet of Missing Hope

Empathetic Poem

Don’t Kill Yourself

Secret

FEELING OF THE WORLD
(1940)

Feeling of the World

Confessions of a Man from Itabira

Hand in Hand

You Carry the World on Your Shoulders

International Symposium on Fear

Elegy 1938

JOSÉ
(1942)

The Moth

The Ox

Sadness in Heaven

Journey Through the Family

ROSE OF THE PEOPLE
(1945)

Nausea and the Flower

Death of the Milkman

In Search of Poetry

The Elephant

Middle Age

Verses on the Brink of Evening

Family Portrait

Swipe of the Sword

Roll, World, Roll

Story of the Dress

Lesser Life

Residue

The Last Days

NEW POEMS
(1948)

I’m Making a Song

Disappearance of Luisa Porto

Garden

Sponge Song

CLEAR ENIGMA
(1951)

Love

May Afternoon

The Ungay Science

Make-believe Lullaby

Questions

Letter

The Table

Coexistence

The Machine of the World

Field of Flowers

FARMER IN THE CLOUDS
(1954)

Domicile

Chaos in the Bedroom

Eternal

Buried Alive

Elegy

FAIR COPY OF LIFE
(1959)

Nakedness

The Infernal Powers

Meditations on the Word Man

LESSON OF THINGS
(1962)

Destruction

Porcelain

Science Fiction

THE LOVING ABSENCE
(1968)

The Misinformed God

The Voice

Communion

IMPURITIES OF WHITE
(1973)

Declaration in Court

The Time of Love

How to Make a Landscape

OXTIME
(THREE VOLUMES,1968/1973/1979)

Green Library

Looking for What

Be Careful

Woman Dressed as a Man

The Priest Walks Down the Street

Confession

The Whore

Threesome in a Café

BODY
(1984)

The Body’s Contradictions

The Minute After

Absence

Truth

FAREWELL
(1987; FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1996)

Unity

The House of Lost Time

Notes on the Poems

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

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PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS

MULTITUDINOUS HEART

Carlos Drummond de Andrade was born in a Brazilian mining village in 1902. A government employee for most of his life he simultaneously produced a stunning body of original poetry that broke with traditional forms or used them in unexpected ways. He was a leading figure in Brazilian modernism and is his country’s most beloved, most translated poet. He died in 1987.

Richard Zenith, born and raised in the United States, lived in Brazil and France before emigrating to Portugal in 1987. He has translated the poetry of Luís de Camões, Fernando Pessoa, Sophia de Mello Breyner and João Cabral de Melo Neto.

THE BEGINNING