Customer Reviews

Fernando Pessoa and Co.: Selected Poems

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Just being himself wasn't good enough for Fernando Pessoa, so he divided himself into four distinct, invented personalities ("heteronyms") and wrote poetry from the perspective and in the style of each of them. This in itself is a remarkable feat of literary imagination.

The poetry itself (well, this translation of it) is startling. It's direct and plain-spoken for the most part, even allowing for the personality differences. It may look un-poetic, or even awkward, at first reading. But it sticks. Days after reading, you may find lines and phrases of Pessoa & Co. springing up spontaneously in your head, just because they're so sharp and to the point. Getting to know this multitudinous poet is an invigorating experience. Try it yourself.

I've been reading and translating Pessoa for several years now, and know his work very well. I have a few minor quibbles with the introductory material, but that's to be expected. Richard Zenith is a terrific translator, and also obviously an excellent poet. I couldn't possibly praise his work too highly. Fernando Pessoa was a great poet; all lovers of poetry owe Richard Zenith tremendous gratitude. Read this book, and then look for anything else RZ has translated. You won't be disappointed.

This is a wonderful book of translations, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in Pessoa, modern poetry, Portuguese culture or the psychology of writing (Pessoa was a fantastically bizarre person who developed several personalities, each writing in his own style). It also includes an intelligent and intriguing introduction to Pessoa written by the translator, Richard Zenith.

I've read many of Pessoa's works and studied him at school. I remenber that after studying some very weel-know poets we reached Pessoa. I also remenber and i'll possibly never forget that after reading some of his poems i just exclaimed out loud "Ei, este gajo e um genio"-"ohh, this guy's a genious".
I write poetry for some years now and i'm always very critic about it. But Pessoa just seems to be ahead of our own critic, sometimes wondering in our own mind, How does he do that !?
Someone hear in Amazon was surprised by the reviews posted here and asked "Is he really that good, or is the translation not so good" Then he just asked if some portuguease reader could clarify it. Well i am portuguease and i tell you he is really that good or even better.
I try the best i can to be objective in my reviews but when we talk about Pessoa we talk about emotions and feelings. After all who can be indifferent to the work that some call the most beatifull writing in the world (Jean-Pierre Thibaudat) and others remember it as the most inspiring author of our time! If i have to be objective i shall say his poems gives me a shiver in my spine...his prose: a moment of silence with my innerself.
About coloquial language, at least the portuguese original texts are not, mostly if you compare them with other famous portuguese poets like Camoes or Bocage.
As to Caeiro`s poetry and other others heteronyms, it is simply his need to see things in a different perpective.
This is a man that recognized himself to have sacrificed his live, his soul, his hapinnes and his mental health to be remenbered, just so that someone, even if only a single person, would remember him. And here he is now...and here we are with him.
Pessoa is that kind of author that doesn?t carries his heart at his mouth and his cause at his pen, this is a very mental experience, a reflexion on basic feelings and senses, such a deep vision on subjectivism that just a man that baunces between the thin line of genious and madness would achieve.
It astonishes...

This is an excellent book for people who are just discovering the richness of Pessoa's work. Although unknown to many readers prose and poetry of Pessoa deserve the priority on every poetry lover's bookshelf. He will amaze you, his heteronyms will confuse your mind and at the end you'll ask yourself... "How come I've never been introduced to this marvelous writer..to this poet whose honesty is sometimes schocking and to this solitary being ..

And you will think and think...yes..he does that well..for days after reading Pessoa's poems you'll remember and tell the tales. :) Happy reading!!

If Fernando Pessoa had lived in an English-speaking country (and mind you, he spoke perfect English since childhood and wrote some of his poems in that language), he would probably be more popular among academians and university students as Pound or Elliot. During his lifetime, he assumed a number of names and personalities, which reflect different and complementary ways of understanding life and poetry. From theoretical paganism towards XXth century malaise, his work is very thorough. Whereas some of his poems might seem a bit depressing (I am thinking about "The tobacco shop" and "The road to Sintra"), the mere fact somebody wrote something as beautiful and human makes them enlightening. I know this isn't an academic review as such, but Pessoa's poetry needn't only be read from you mind, but also from your gut. This a book definitely worth buying if you consider yourself a poetry lover.

I don't speak Portuguese, but I've read Pessoa in Italian translation, and I consider his poetry remarkably powerful. I would think that, based on linguistic similarities, Italian translations in general would be more faithful to the original Portuguese than English would be.
I bought this edition of Pessoa, translated by Richard Zenith, and was so terribly disappointed by the shoddiness of the translation that I was forced to write this review to defend Pessoa. Zenith fails miserably in conveying the sheer haunting power of Pessoa. Zenith's English is too colloquial for the task. Portuguese is not like Russian or Arabic: one would have to work fairly hard to make a translation this bad; or be awfully enamored of one's own poetical abilities, instead of being a faithful conduit of the original language.
You ought to read Pessoa, but find a better translation.

Pessoa, like all of us, had strong emotions. What we would call moods--restlessness, sensuality, fearfulness, anger, expansiveness--he would call "heteronyms". His heteronyms were moods that had become embodied and endowed with a persona. This is unusual enough. He also invented complex biographies for each personality--they had names, histories, accomplishments, tastes, and definite capacities and limitations. Where this goes beyond unusual and enters into the extraordinary is where these personalities each reveal a remarkable gift for poetry. That the poetry can reflect the individual nature of each heteronym, while retaining a universal appeal, is an unparalleled feat. There is really nothing else like this.

Richard Zenith has written a very good 30 page introduction to the poems in an effort to prepare the reader for the depth and breadth of the work that follows. A biographical sketch is provided, the major heteronyms are identified and characterized, and a philosophic assessment of Pessoa, both his influences and his impact, is attempted. But nothing will prepare you for reading a poem like The Tobacco Shop. Written by the alter ego Alvaro de Compos, it is brutally honest, wistful, bleak, and redemptive by turns. Compos, whose mission was "to feel all things in all ways", has fulfilled his ambition in this poem. He takes a blunt look at the emotional wreckage of his existence--life slams up against Fate, success slides into failure, genius leaks away into dream, fullness is revealed as emptiness and thus becomes fullness of an entirely different sort. It is this rare, magical, tentative, and all-inclusive human fullness that is Pessoa's gift. The gift is given repeatedly in this volume, and not just through the extravagant Compos.

Highly recommended for poets, students of human nature, and those readers who have a deep interest in international literature.

I'd heard of Pessoa by way of Borges but hadn't read anything 'til I got this. Glad I did. Even in translation and disregarding all the pseudonym business, it's obvious he's one of the best poets of the century. Maybe the best (who's better-- Rilke? maybe; Stevens? nah; Eliot? sometimes) Maybe the best.

The fact that Pessoa is a foreign poet just recently introduced in English and the publisher had run out of stock at the moment, speaks volumes. As Yogi Bera said, it only happenned in America. All too rarely.