Sevilha andando, with “A sevilhana que não se sabia”

Abstract

Abstract: In 1987, when the João Cabral de Melo Neto’s collection of poems was published under the title of Crime in Calle Relator (1987), “A sevilhana que não se sabia” was the second in the order of exhibition, shortly after the poem of the same name to the book. That poem was reproduced as the first of the author’s next collection, titled Sevilha andando (1989), while it ceased to appear in the reissues of the book in which it was initially listed. Thus, the poem that was from one book began to compose another, exclusively, at the initiative of the author himself, for whom it mattered the constitution of the aesthetic artifact that the book comes to be. This differential trait in the author’s trajectory focuses retrospectively on all his work, from this remarkable event that interferes with the understanding of what constitutes a book, be it its publication or the meeting of poems that demands an appreciation particularized, on a case-by-case basis, of the poems intertwined with each other. Following the repercussion of the poem in the context of the poetic work, it will be made a comparison between the available editions of the volumes involved, to reach a more palpable understanding of the poem, perspectived throughout that poetic production.

Keywords: modern Brazilian poetry; João Cabral de Melo Neto; style; publishing.