-
Palms
Tomás leaned against the muddy wall of the trench furiously whittling a knotted tree branch. He paused, controlled his impatience, not wishing to carve the wrong groove. The knuckles of his hand were white, his fingers numb from the relentless work, the iced air. He unwrapped his frozen fingers from the wood and warmed his hands under his armpits before firing random shots into the night. He waited for the enemy sentinel to dutifully respond. The shots echoed over the hill. Tomás sighed. One more hour of silence would now settle over the trenches. Tomás sealed a rolled cigarette with his tongue and lit the smoke under his coat. As…
-
As Borboletas de Prudêncio Casmurro
Prudêncio Casmurro não era um homem qualquer. Enterrou os pais, sete mulheres e o último de vinte e dois filhos, revelando sempre pouca ânsia em partir deste mundo. Testemunhou carros de bois a serem substituídos por tractores e tractores a serem substituídos por ceifeiras monstras. Do quarto, espreitava sobre o muro do quintal. Espreitava o mundo que rodopiava cada vez mais loucamente, o mundo que brilhava e rangia os dentes mais ferozmente, a imensa cintilação dificultando-lhe a diferenciação entre a noite e o dia. Com teimosia de burro prosseguia com a sua vida. Era como se fossem ventos passageiros a bater-lhe à janela e aos quais ele fechava as cortinas…
-
Eugénio de Andrade – Between Brutality and Tenderness
paulo da costa interviews Eugénio de Andrade Eugénio de Andrade is the most loved of the living Portuguese poets and the best known outside his country. He is thin, slightly hunched by the weight of nearly eight decades of life and there is a visible frailty in the way he walks. His hair is pure white. Of himself he has said he is a mixture of brutality and tenderness. In 1994 the city of Porto offered him a house with a view to the sea and the small colourful fishing boats rocking by the shore. The house was designed having in mind that a poet was going to inhabit it.…
-
Da Costa bears criticism
Calgary Herald Tuesday, May 06, 2003 Paulo da Costa chose Canada as his place of residence despite an encounter with a grizzly bear. Paulo da Costa will read from The Scent of a Lie at noon today at McNally Robinson Booksellers as part of the Commonwealth Writers Prize celebrations. Calgary author Paulo da Costa knows a thing or two about standing his ground — in the face of both critics and carnivores. His face-to-face with the carnivore came a dozen years ago on a hike in the Alberta Rockies. The Angola-born, Portugal-raised writer hit the trail alone for a bit of soul-searching as he struggled to decide whether to…
-
Rosas, Lírios e Crisântemos
paulo da costa Num fim de tarde arruivado, caminhando pelo olival, Manuel Sabetudo anteviu a sua morte e o corpo estremeceu como uma oliveira varejada, derramando a última azeitona. Manuel perdeu o dom da palavra, sobrevivendo esse verão fatídico, acocorado na margem do rio Caima, seguindo as águas cristalinas a deambular pelo verdejante vale até desaparecerem de vista. Manuel Sabetudo revivia o acidente na sua mente, ajoelhando-se ao corpo, fechando-lhe os olhos, seguindo o cortejo até casa onde depositaram o cadáver, depois ajudando-os a despir as roupas rasgadas e a banhar-se, corando, pois era um homem pudico. No banho, os dedos do Manuel contornavam pisaduras do tamanho de pântanos que…
-
Jim Bartley
“With this book of linked stories, Paulo Da Costa adds piquant new spice to the CanLit broth. Despite a recent Booker short list proving yet again that Canada’s writers are also the world’s, we’ve still lacked (I invite correction) a fiction hailing from Portuguese villages” JIM BARTLEY , Guardian, Saturday, December 28, 2002
-
Erin Mouré – Dialogues and Polylogues
Erin Mouré is one of Canada’s most respected and eminent poets. Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Furious, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for Domestic Fuel, the QSPELL Award for Poetry for WSW, Mouré has published twelve books of poetry, including A Frame of the Book (aka The Frame of a Book), which was co-published in the U.S. by Sun and Moon Press, and Sheep’s Vigil by a Fervent Person, shortlisted for the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize and the City of Toronto Book Award. Her most recent collection, O Cidadán, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award in 2003. Mouré lives in Montreal and writes with a…
-
Quincy Troupe – On Reading Like a Sleeping Pill
Quincy Troupe is a poet, journalist, and teacher. Two-time winner of the prestigious Heavyweight Champion of Poetry and winner of American Book Awards for both nonfiction (Miles: The Autobiography) and poetry (Snake Back Solos), he leaves audiences in awe with his incendiary jazz performance style. His most recent work, the picture book Take it to the Hoop, Magic Johnson — is a dazzling tribute in poetry and pictures to the great American basketball athlete. This October paulo da costa spoke with Quincy Troupe during WordFest in Calgary. Quincy Troupe Well, let me go back to the beginning a little bit – I was a very good basketball player at…
-
The Magic Is Simply A Door
I HAVE been having a kind of conversation with Paulo da Costa for at least four years now. He’d sent us a short story, “Hell’s Mouth Bay,” in response to Margin’s first ever call for submissions. Naturally, we were slow in responding as we worked out our editorial processes, so when we finally decided we wanted to take his story, he had to write back with the unfortunate news that it had already been taken elsewhere and, consequently, it was no longer available, even in reprint. Needless to say, we were disappointed.
You May Also Like
Adrienne Rich – Does Poetry Matter?
-
No Limiar de um Século…
CRÓNICAS DE CALGARY O DESPERTAR DE UMA CULTURA REJUVESNESCIDA Portugal, após viver grande parte do século XX em entorpecido isolamento e enclausurado puritanismo cultural, parece presentemente despertar o interesse de outros povos, através da sua cultura, Língua, e principalmente através da vitalidade das renovadas heranças da lusofonia disseminadas pelo mundo. A língua e cultura lusitanas, nas suas recentes mesclagens com África, América do Sul, e de um modo mais ténue com a Ásia e a Oceânia – não esquecendo as sementes da diáspora povoando os recantos do mundo – evidenciam, após longo interregno, um enérgico desabrochar . Na semana que antecedeu o Natal, a CKUA (1927) – emissora pública de…
