When we speak of poetry and soccer together, in the very same sentence, we are led to believe that we are talking about wonderful players and gameplays, that is, the poetic performance that the soccer game unfolds physically throughout its ninety minutes. However, football can be the target of another kind of poetry. Yes, we are talking about that poetry in the usual sense of the written record, made by poets, and which, at first sight, seems to us very distant from the reality of the soccer game. The proposal of this book, ...
Read More
When we speak of poetry and soccer together, in the very same sentence, we are led to believe that we are talking about wonderful players and gameplays, that is, the poetic performance that the soccer game unfolds physically throughout its ninety minutes. However, football can be the target of another kind of poetry. Yes, we are talking about that poetry in the usual sense of the written record, made by poets, and which, at first sight, seems to us very distant from the reality of the soccer game. The proposal of this book, originally published in Portuguese, is quite simple: to write soccer poetry. A poetic quest for epistemic and historical definitions about a worldwide passion. Passion that belongs in the cultural fabric of nations like ours, Brazil. The poetic construction of this book is made of these "clouds," a concept of Jacques Lacan. Poems and sketches are articulated to build a tiny soccer imaginary. The tankas presented here, elaborated by the author who writes these lines, are gathered in two narrative arcs. The idea here is tributary of modernism, both Portuguese and Brazilian, where the lyrics were pooled in arcs to problematize their epic hybridity. Fernando Pessoa and Jorge de Lima are two names that immediately appear in my mind when thinking about this literary resource. Thus, we have tankas that speak of "Soccer Positions," the eleven possible functions to be performed in the field by the players and, in other arc, tankas who speak of "World Cups," working the twenty editions of this cup - from 1930 to 2014 - as well as the expectation of the next edition in 2018. Together with the tankas, I spread some sketches about football in this book, all of them also drawn by me. Made by digital sketching, they are another face of the "clouds" of the tiny football imaginary proposed by this book.
Read Less