The Clean Shirt of It

Esteemed in Brazil both as a poet and the translator of English and American writings from Lord Byron to Jack Kerouac, Britto deserves a firm hearing in the States: on the deft evidence of Novey's translations, the author is consistently thoughtful, humble and observant, both about the great themes of love and knowledge and about the rooms and cityscapes he depicts. Britto's long sentences and short lines carry more than a hint of Elizabeth Bishop: in “Scherzo,” “enormous uncomfortable clouds/ rolled past the window/ like lazy pachyderms/ and sprawled out, unfettered.” He wonders, often, whether he can portray any truth beyond the merely personal; the tactful, self-suspicious poem “Snake Charmer” seeks “a slender, venomous truth.” In the more recent poems, his humility extends to self-abnegation: “no silence is ever enough.” Yet he can also display virtuoso technique. Novey removes the rhymes from his many sonnets, but preserves the repetitions in a sestina, and keeps, too, the wild range of styles that differentiate the segments of his “Nine Variations on a Theme of Jim Morrison.” This brief book makes an ideal starting point for what should be an international reputation. (July)