Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems; A Bilingual Edition

One of Brazil’s most important poets, the wry, dry, self-deprecating Drummond (1902–1987), claims a respectable American following, and this large, bilingual collection, ably introduced by veteran translator Zenith, should see that reputation expand further. The early poems, puzzle-like and spare, that made Drummond’s name (“I will never forget that in the middle of the road/ there was a stone”) serve to introduce his friendlier narratives and parables, particularly the long, affectionate, imaginary family reunion entitled “The Table,” or an extended comparison of poetry to a stuffed elephant, “ready to go out and look/ for friends in a jaded/ world that doesn’t believe/ any more in animals.” Readers who make it through Drummond’s weaker, more abstract verse of the 1960s and ’70s will be rewarded with the sharp recollections of “Oxtime,” which describes the poet’s mining-town childhood. They will also discover a deliberate, sad poetry of old age. Zenith duplicates the pace, if not the meters, of Drummond’s seven-syllable lines and makes careful English from the Portuguese of his free verse: the poet who emerges has one eye on his big country, but he attends first and last to an exemplary “tiny, quiet, indifferent/ solitary life.” [em](July) [/em]