ALBERTO DE LACERDA : 77 POEMS. Translated by Alberto de
Lacerda and Arthur Waley. (George Allen and Unwin, 9s. 6d.) SENHOR DE LACERDA is one of the few poets writing today who, while still under thirty, possesses the assurance of maturity. Whether read in his original Portuguese or in the excel, lent, though of necessity slightly less lyrical translations that face them, such pieces as `Meditation' and 'The Net' are finished to the final assonance, the last shade of feeling. The images are simple, yet dense with weight of associations; the religious questioning is rein- forced by no unnecessary and histrionic gesture. This is poetry that has passed through the disorder of modernism, and emerged the stronger for it. The poet never strains, but gives the impression of retaining reserves of power that will enable him to continue and develop. He has now come to the place reached by Rilke in his Book of Hours; the longer poems among his most recent show increasing powers of construction. What may not be hoped of him when, like Rilke in his Elegies, he systematically builds up the imagery of which he is already a master?
Like any first collection, these seventy- seven poems show traces of the poet's reading. The shimmer of Jorge Gunter), or perhaps of Valery, and the surprisingly concrete dream motifs of Rafael Alberti's poems About Angels have moved him in the past. But now he has no need of other poet's examples. This poetry is his own.
J. M. COHEN
Previous page
