thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
too for sure. Life often plays strange tricks on us. It also played them on me too. In the same 1960, I met Brother Gilberto, who became my religious coach. He did not steal me from soccer, he stole me from Vasto Verde instead. Ill make at least one Franciscan Brother out of you, was his firm message to us, his students. He taught religious classes at Elementary School Adolpho Konder, and I was one of his students. He repeated his message regularly like a mantra every class. He talked about Saint Francis and when he said that the Saint loved sports and would certainly have enjoyed soccer if he were a Brazilian, Brother Gilberto won me to his cause. I became his best student. The battle between Pele and Saint Francis was opened, then, but I didnt know who would be the winner, soccer or priesthood. In 1961, Saint Francis defeated Pele, Brother Gilberto took me from soccer, which changed my entire life. In February of that year, I entered the Franciscan Seminary of Sao Luis de Tolosa in the city of Rio Negro, Parana. I had decided to be a priest, a Franciscan Brother.I spent 8 years with the Franciscans. In those years I did not simply make a move from Pele to Saint Francis, I chose between what they represented: secularity and spirituality. Having chosen spirituality, I was lucky to manage to ally myself to the Franciscan life, but hopefully I could bring soccer and prayers together. Only when I discovered my special interest for languages and literature, soccer and what it represented started to fade in my life and the books took the front.Now I know what I could not know then. Thats what a mans experience is good for. I would only be able to develop a special taste for literature in Rio Negro, and in Agudos, Sao Paulo, the city to which I went two years later to pursue my way to priesthood. I would not do that in Blumenau, having my entire life taken by soccer. The seminary was the right place for that, and I used it for my own literary development. I read and studied all kinds of literature: Brazilian, Portuguese, Latin, French, English and American writers and works were available to me.Galia divisa est in partes tres, was the latin sentence Ive never forgot. Though I dont remember any Greek sentence to quote here, I certainly could write many of them here now, in French or English, but that would make this a boring reading. One is enough: I came to bury Caesar not to praise him. This is good Shakespeare, in Mark Anthonys speech in Caesars funeral. Ela me amou durante seis meses e seiscentos contos de reis comes from somewhere else in Machado de AssisAs a result of my concerns with the texts of others I began writing my own poems, fiction, criticism. It was then that I could finally see the symbolic similarities between soccer and literature a game of players and a game of texts , and I
made that move towards literature. When I left the seminary in late sixties, I had got a consistent literary basis and a certainty: I would be a professional of the letters. In fact, I did my letters course, took my master degree and became a professor of Anglo-American literature at FURB. I did not stop there, but took my Ph.D degree in African American Literature, and developed a more consistent view of my teaching ability with regard to literature.In 1990, I started teaching Anglo-American Literature at FURB. I had then two main concerns, which I keep until today: to improve my own literary competence and help students develop their own.1. Literary Competence of my own.I cannot clearly say when my literary competence began. What I can say for sure is that it took a first step toward existence with a text. However I cannot guarantee that it was a text I read or a text I wrote. Never mind. What really matters is that it started, continued and flourished, despite myself. Presently I got the feeling that literary competence is not something that you develop, it is something that develops you. What follows is what literature did to me. It used me for its own benefit and I let myself be led.Between Breasts and Laughters: Poetry.In 1972, I published a poem in a local newspaper. Ive lost it in the many moves I had to take. I guess it was a promising beginning. I had written and published two or three poems or stories of my own in the magazines of the seminary in the sixties, but had given little importance to them. I was too young to take myself seriously. Since 1972, Ive been publishing my poems in local newspapers, which I judge good and innovative works. Just one example:Seios cobertos de ouro,ou descobertos, nao e o que queremos.Seios, cheios do que queremos,e o que queremos.The innovative aspects that poems like this brought to local literary tradition are in their rationalized eroticism. The relation that exists between the new artist and tradition is analyzed by T.S.Elliot. He says that the young author brings innovation to the tradition he is willing to be part of. In the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent, he discusses how the new author deals with tradition in order to find his own place among matured writers. He explains his views:No poet, no artist of any sort, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this is a principle of aesthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall adhere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art
among them (p.2554) In a similar way, as a young author, I also negotiated with the existing literary tradition in Blumenau, though not consciously. The poet Geraldo Luz, Vilson Nascimento, Lindolf Bell and Erico Max Mueller made the tradition of the time. Geraldo Luz took my poem to Jornal A Cidade, the same newspaper which brought his poems every Sunday. Years later I managed to have another poem published in Jornal de Santa Catarina. This time was Vilson Nascimento poet and journalist who introduced me to the newspaper readers.By the laws of literary conventions, tradition and the new talent tend to set the rules of their mutual existence. As I was taking part in that game, I promised myself I would never leave it. In the next years, I had my texts poems, short stories and critical articles published in most of the literary sections of newspapers in the state: Jornal de Santa Catarina, O Estado, A Noticia e O Diario. Additionally, I participated in anthologies with other poets and short stories writers. My books only came out years later, in 1986. Me Pagam Pra Kaput was the title of my first book of poems, in that year. It was like the coronation of all those years delivering my texts here and there, and hoping that the right person would take and published them. Now it was different, I could finance my own books. When you finance you own literary achievement the criteria for selection of texts are your own. This is at the same time invigorating and intimidating for the consequences it may bring to your literary reputation. But I decided to take all the risks possible. Despite journalist Fabio Bruggemanns comment, in O Estado, that o Me Pagam pra Kaput ainda deixa a desejar, the book was well received by critics. Lauro Junkes, for exemple, wrote: assim, surpreendentemente, o realismo rude e agressivo do titulo Me Pagam Pra Kaput nos envolve e conduz ao reino da poesia. (43) I had survived my first book.From 1987 to 1995 I wrote and financed other collections of poems: Me Tomam Pra Doryl (1987), Me Vestem Pra Dujon (1988), Diet Poesia (1990), Traseiro de Brasileiro (1992), and Poelitica (1996). Ten years of poetry. What makes a person to dedicate ten years of his life to the making of poetry is still a mystery to me. Is it lack of alternatives? Is it fate, call or search? I dont know. Was I looking for myself? Who knows? Maybe the meta-poem a poem about poem - I quote brings some light to my poetical self: poema, me olhede cima deste versosde fora e de dentro,enquanto me vejo em cada um dos teus movimentos. I guess a better explanation is in local critic Dennis Lauro Radunz. Seus poemas, he writes about my poetical expression, expandem-se a partir de fragmentos de prosa da piada ao proverbio evidenciando um poeta prometeico que se insurge contra a poesia, subjugando o som ao sentido, em obra de batismo e barbarie. (p. 7)But I still dont know.Angels and Bertilias: FictionEnough with poetry.
Fiction is claiming its place. I wrote my first fictional text in the seminary, and continued doing fiction when I came back to Blumenau in early seventies. Since then Ive seen my short stories printed on the pages of Jornal de Santa Catarina e O Estado. I guess an interesting piece of fiction I wrote was titled O Anjo de Blumenau. It narrates what happens to an angel and the people when he/she comes to a town unexpectedly. The angel is caught and cut into pieces, which are taken home as souvenirs. The tale ends with a very pessimistic view. Na praca, apenas o que sobrara do anjo, ali ao sabor de quem chegasse primeiro: os urubus ou o carro do lixo municipal.I also took part in anthologies and contests. In one contest I was classified, got the third place and some money. The short story was Praca de Cao e Padre and was published in the anthology Os Contos Premiados da FURB. I write about a childs abuse by an adult and peoples indifference to violence. The abuser an old man later attacks the people, who refuse to protect the child from his abuser. The story ends in mutual reconciliation between the child and the man, and o menino veio para perto dele, sentou-se ao seu lado. Professor Demerval Mafra wrote a critical essay on the short story and closes it, commenting on the final harmony of the child and the old man. A demencia ativa e a passiva reunidas numa mesma dor, provenientes de motivos diversos, mas que, por falta de juizo critico, fazia sofrer as duas personalidades afinadas pelo mesmo diapasao, esperando as mesmas ajudas, (p.80 ) diz Mafra. In 1993, I came out with what I consider my greatest work. Enquanto Isso em Dom Casmurro was the result of years of preparation and study. I think it is a post-modern novel, maybe the first one in the state of Santa Catarina. Basically it tells the story of a woman who has a multiple identity. She is at the same time Capitu, Sula Miranda, Zeze Motta e Bertilia. The idea behind the story is that in post-modern experience we, as individuals, do not have a fixed and unitary identity, but many. Thats why when Capitu leaves Dom Casmurro Machado de Assiss realistic novel and comes to Blumenau, she develops all those new female identities. I guess part of the success of my novel is due to its association with Assiss novel. Only part of it. The other part comes from the quality and the novelty of the textual arrangements I was able to construct. I also think my novel was read, analyzed and studied by many different experts on Brazilian Literature. I gave two long interviews and had my ideas published on A Noticia and Diario Catarinense. Despite the anger it provoked in many people, who believed it was a literary blasphemy against Machado de Assis, others critically pointed out its literary qualities. One is Antonio Hohlfeldt, who wrote, in the book A Literatura Catarinense em Busca de Identidade
Poesia, that no romance de estreia de Jose Endoenca Martins, o aspecto pos-moderno nao e um simples modismo, mas a base imprescindivel de afirmacao do proprio projeto, que se deseja pos-moderno, naquilo de fragmentario e de combinacao dispar que o pos-modernismo possui como caracteristica, para poder cumprir com sua funcao: a critica de determinada realidade. (p.147)Reading Race Literary Criticism.Em maio de 1989, comecei a escrever sobre literatura no JSC. This was the first sentence I wrote for the preface of a book which has not been published yet. Many factors contributed for the book not to be published. All I can say is that it would be my first book on literary criticism. It resulted from my weekly column on the paper. The column lasted one entire year, from May/89 to May/90. Tudo Pelo Textual was its title in 1989; 90-Letras, in 1990. During that year I analyzed forty books: seventeen by foreign writers, twenty-three by Brazilian authors. Writers who lived in Blumenau or in the State also had their books commented on. The column concentrated on three genres of literary phenomena: poetry, fiction and ideas. I discussed works by international authors like Gabriel Garcia Marques and Mario Vargas Llosa, along with local names like Rosane Magaly Matins and Vilson Nascimento. I did all that for free and no pay was offered. My case is not as serious as Vilson Nascimentos, who wrote a column on Art for ten years for the same paper, and was never paid. I wrote a column about his column, which was a criticism to the experience he was having. Nenhum centavo Vilson cobrou do jornal. Nenhum centavo foi-lhe oferecido. Nao e uma queixa. E pura constatacao. Vilson nao e de reclamar. Fe-lo porque qui-lo. Nao buscava recompensa nenhuma. Apenas divulgava nossas pequenas e desinteressantes producoes. Apenas um outro detalhe: em qualquer outra atividade Vilson, hoje, estaria rico, I wrote in recognition to what Vilson Nascimento had done for us local writers.In 1991, I came out with Poema Minuto: A Poetica do Tempo. It includes three aspects of my literary concerns: my personal thoughts on my own poetic writing, critics analyses of my poems, and some articles I wrote about Brazilian writers. I think what deserves mention here is the concept Poema Minuto I created to explain my poems. These are my words: o poema minuto e curto ou nao, (...) mas nao tem preocupacoes com a metrica fixa. Metrica e ritmo do poema minuto dependem do autor. Do tema tambem. Do assunto, igualmente. O poema minuto e curto, ou nao. Nao porque vivemos num tempo sem tempo. Mas porque quer ocupar um minuto apenas do leitor. (Poema Minuto: A Poetica do Tempo, 1991, p.14). As for its concerns, poema minuto includes a number of poetic and non-poetic aspects. A ironia, a irreverencia, o humor, o amor, as vezes o hamor tambem, o politico, o social, o sexual, o erotico e, ate, o heretico, co-habitam com harmonia, ou nao, e forca, a constelacao de preocupacoes do poema minuto, (Idem, p. 12) I said. In the nineties, I
was responsible for another literary column in a newspaper, this time Jornal da Noite. The column was the basis for a book that is ready, and I hope to see it published this year. For an entire year I wrote the column and discussed books of literature. However, different from my column on Jornal de Santa Catarina, I used a more challenging textual strategy. I created a character, the blond vizinha who came to my apartment every Monday morning to teach me about literature. She brought her books, but I guess I was interested in her body. She won me, managed to educate me, and taught me about the poetic qualities of literary book. I wrote:Eu a beijo e sinto que aquilo e bom. Agradecida, ela me passa um livro de poesias: Sem Rimas e Sem Razao. E antes que eu consiga ver titulo, autora, ilustracao e editora na capa, minha vizinha me avisa. E o livro de estreia da catarinense Maria Odete Olsen, pela Paralelo 27. Quando penso que vai parar para que eu folheie o livro ela continua. Os versos ali de cima sao delas. Olha para mim e me beija de novo (p. 77).The critical articles will be included in a book whose title is Quem Semeia Poesia Colhe. In 1995, I published Sexualidade e Amor Numa Terra So de Mulheres: Sexualidade, Genero e Raca na Ficcao Americana. It includes three long critical articles, in which I deal with the interrelations that go between gender, race and sexuality of female characters in three major literary works by American women: Edna Pontellier, in Kate Chopins The Awakening; Celie, in Alice Walkers The Color Purple; and Janie Crawford, in Zora Neale Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God. My deep belief was placed in the idea that both black and white women, when writing, or functioning as characters, must create the conditions, which will allow for them to perform behaviors which are new, revolutionary, and challenging to a social practice that wants to remain unchanged. Thus they resisted. A ideia de resistencia embutida nos tres artigos pretende alertar o leitor que as heroinas dos romances pautaram suas vidas pela decisao de resistir e de nao se conformar aos padroes sociais vigentes, marcados pelo sexismo das experiencias masculinas, (p.16) I wrote.From 1990 to 1999 I worked as the coordinator of Revista de Divulgacao Cultural da FURB, and had the opportunity to publish several critical articles on it. They dealt with local and African-American literature. In some of them I discussed various ideas about how literature Anglo-American should be taught at FURB. I explained what I mean by A competence Approach to Language Teaching for Letras, in which I have literature in mind: The consistency of the approach lies in the associated mastery of the competences. And these five ( linguistic, textual, communicative, cultural, and pedagogical) competences are interconnected, they mutually serve and help each other and tend to become tremendously necessary and useful for the students mastery of their literary competence. In fact, literary competence requires the students control and command of language
experiencias afro-brasileiras, I wrote.Fluid Identities Drama.I had to go beyond poetry, fiction, criticism. So I tried a play. I came out this year with the comedy O Olho da Cor, which thematically is an expansion of black womens identity crisis displayed in the novel Enquanto Isso em Dom Casmurro(1993). In a humorous way, I deal with a woman who is black in the first act, white in the second, and in the third she makes her option. I close the play with a postmodern view of feminine identity. The female character asks herself:Sera que vou saber conviver comigo mesma? Com meu olho azul sem fura-lo, quando for negra? Com meu olho negro sem despreza-lo, quando for branca? Com os dois, quando as duas cores me cobrirem? Sera que vou conseguir? Sera que vou conseguir aceitar outras pessoas em iguais, ambiguas e multiplas situacoes? Professor Dilvo Ristoff was the first reader of the play and his words summarize the feeling that comes to me when I read O Olho da Cor. He wrote:A julgar pelas suas inumeras alusoes, repeticoes e revisoes, e pela sua riqueza de linguagem, pelo seu misterio, pelo prazer que proporciona e pela capacidade de falar as angustias humanas do mundo pos-colonial, podemos ter a certeza de que estamos diante de uma obra que sera lida por muitos durante muito tempo. The table below gives an approximate idea of my contribution to literature in the various genres I have been involved with.Genre Works Poem Six Books Novel One BookPlay One BookEssay Four BooksCritical Articles 100 ArticlesNewspaper Articles 250 ArticlesShort-Stories 70 Interviews 202. Literary Competence of their own.Invoque algunos episodios de las novelas de la radio, letras de rancheras y otros ingredientes de mi invencion, y me largue de inmediato con la historia de una doncella enamorada de un bandolero, un verdadero chacal que resolvia a balazos hasta los menores contratiempos, sembrando la region de viudas y huerfanos. (p.66) This is how Eva Luna, the narrator of Isabel Allendes novel Eva Luna, creates her own stories. She mixes a little of everything available, outside and inside herself. The result of this mingling of multiple ingredients is her literary competence. As we can see in Eva Lunas move to the world of literature, literary competence involves individual decision. However, this is not all. Brumfit (1986) suggests that competence in literature includes the interplay of event with event, relationships between characters, exploitation of ideas and value systems, formal structure in terms of a genre or other literary convention, and relationships between any of these and the world outside literature itself (p.185). The student of literature learns how to manage all these aspects and phenomena inside and outside texts. Having Brumfits characterization of what awareness in literature requires, I have developed a methodological apparatus leading to the building of my students literary competence. Why? Not simply because of anger and despair. Elsewhere I made my personal reasons explicit: The search for an approach to language teaching founded upon the concept of competence is associated with my angst and despair against the lifeless routine in
tasks, listening ones individual and pair are done in class. Theres another aspect here: speaking and listening always go together. Reciprocity is their mark. That is, when youre doing speaking there is someone listening to you. And when someone is doing speaking you will be listening to him/her.So far so good. If we can take a conclusion from what was said here, it certainly is a simple one: that in my life writing and teaching are inseparable activities. So inseparable that one leads inevitably to the other. In other words, writing creates teaching, which calls for more writing.A second conclusion derives from the first and tells us that writing is a personal experience and cannot be transferred to anybody else. You certainly can teach a person to write, but you cannot write for him/her. Besides, writing literature is a multiple activity and requires your dealing with the various literary genres: poetry, drama, fiction, criticism, and film. Teaching literature follows the same view. When it comes to teaching, the genres are expected to be there too. But thats not all. Theres more. Teaching literature requires an approach. A post-modern approach to literature teaching as my own assumes that literature and language go along together. And while literary competence is being developed linguistic competence is also being mastered. Thats why reading, writing, discussing, speaking, and listening tasks are present. They become the visible aspects in the learners activation of both literary and linguistic competences. Im deeply convinced that interdependence between literature and language in my classes of Anglo-American literature works satisfactorily. Learners personal reports say that too.A final conclusion refers to the idea that literature has a lot to do with life. How much do we steal from texts and take to life, and how much do we take from life and bring to literature? It is much. Take, for instance, the experiences of the characters you get involved with when reading a novel or a play. Their conflicts, feelings, success, defeat, despair and happiness become yours. If they go to work you go with them. If they fall in love you envy them and wish you had a lover like hers/his. This is identification. When I read Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye I identified with Pecola Breedlove in such a way that I made her a character in my play O Olho da Cor.In short, life has shown to me that writing literature is magic and teaching is the magic of magic. Youre about to enter this magic world through English, a language that is becoming yours. This makes your decision even more exciting, and rewarding, though also intimidating. Relax and enjoy.