Poetryandpoets

If in the 19th century, being a poet in the Rio de Janeiro of Pedro II's court was an occupation reserved for young students and on-duty orators, with the professionalization of the literary scene, poetry gained a prominent role – at least for critics and the publishing market.

After the success of simultaneous French schools, which defined poetic styles – mostly the Parnassians and the Symbolists –, the transformations that emerged from the modernist movements erupting in different Brazilian cities in the 1920s led verse-makers to broaden their vocabularies and subjects.

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During Romanticism, poetry was often in the service of the most intense feelings – whether tragic love or political engagement. With the incorporation of the city into the poem's landscape, Rio de Janeiro's poetry gradually transformed, even though many of the leading poets who sang of the city were not born in Rio de Janeiro – the main cases being Manuel Bandeira and Carlos Drummond de Andrade, but also Jorge de Lima and Murilo Mendes.

Despite famous names in the literary world, such as Augusto Frederico Schmidt and his wordy, old-fashioned poetry, and dozens of poets without much recognition beyond literary circles, it was only in the 1930s that a poet like Vinícius de Moraes emerged, quintessentially Carioca and modern in his own way.

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His first books leaned toward a mystical and grandiloquent inclination, but, little by little, the creator of definitive poems about the city would begin to gain popularity. Vinícius brought into the titles of many of his verses a series of neighborhoods such as Ilha do Governador, Botafogo, Copacabana, Lapa, Vidigal, o Mangue, and o (morro do) Cavalão, along with biting comments on architectural evolution, in poems such as "A cidade em progresso."

There existed, and there still exists A certain alley in Lapa Where he watched, no longer does he watch A poet, deep down sad At the top of an apartment As if atop a cliff.

In days of my life When the wind carried me Like a wounded ship Atop the raised cliff I saw a discreet light Kindle serenely.

It was the island of friendship It was the spirit of the poet Searching through the city For my wild, reckless youth. Like a wounded ship Wandering pathetically.

And I would ascend, rising Along the great spiral built Where the poet awaited me And where everything sheltered me Against the anguish of the void That below consumed me.

A simple apartment In a poor, shadowy alley In Lapa, next to the convent... Yet, in my mind It was the lighthouse of poetry Shining serenely.

After a period in which poetry passed through the innovations of constructivist avant-gardes and political engagements, another moment of emergence for Carioca poetry, one that spoke the urban language of its streets, would appear in the so-called "mimeograph poetry" - a generation of young people who moved through the neighborhoods of the South Zone, North Zone, and universities.

Chacal, Charles, Ronaldo Santos, Luiz Olavo Fontes, Ana Cristina César or Bernardo Vilhena made carioca slang, the geography of the hillside slums, beach romances, the fear of silent streets during the civil-military dictatorship, and lives in transit between Arpoador, Parque Lage, São Cristóvão or Copacabana, central themes in their raw and direct verses.

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Waly Salomão, the poet from Bahia, another key figure of that period, also commented on the city's streets in long poems, such as "Roteiro Turístico do Rio de Janeiro," published in his debut book Me segura que eu vou dar um troço, from 1972.

Between the fixed, classical forms of the interwar generation in the 20th century and the free, independent forms of the poets of the 1970s, Rio continued to be a theme for the new generations who emerged in the city and knew how to incorporate its presence into their verses. Carlito Azevedo was one of those who made the city's scenery a latent presence in the cracks of poems running from Rio Branco avenue to the “copper reflections of the Lagoa,” from the wind blowing in Gávea to the “Muslim moon” shining over Urca.