Maria José de Queiroz and the Poetic Cartography of the Soul of Minas Gerais

The Real and its Double Ritual of Memory and Epiphany

Abstract

The poetry of Minas Gerais occupies a unique space in Brazilian literature, marked by introspection, melancholic musicality and an intimate relationship with memory and time. Within this tradition, Maria José de Queiroz stands out for her writing that articulates memoirist lyricism, nostalgia for the lost past, structuring her work as a true ritual of evocation and resistance, as well as the “exercise of the spinner”, that is, the act of spinning being an artifice of poetic construction and creation. This article proposes to analyze how the author from Minas Gerais incorporates, in her poetry, personal and collective memory as ritual elements of identity preservation, while her literary voice is intertwined with the cultural heritage of Minas. It is intended to analyze and critically substantiate the relationship between poetry, Minas Gerais identity and memory present in the poems “Minas Além do Som, Minas Gerais” and “Minas Gerais, Estados d’alma”, from the book Como me contaram... fábulas historiais (1973) and, in addition, from the poem “Três à mesa”, from the book Desde longe (2016). To this end, authors such as Lyslei Nascimento (1995; 2020), Melânia Silva de Aguiar (2007), Pierre Nora (1993), Arnold Van Gennep (2011), among others, are used.