Poetry clears life’s confusing confusion with words and music. It is an amazing fact about human nature that we could perceive the existence of an imagined world alongside the actual physical world. The true source of human creativity is poetry. Poetry reveals important truths about human life and the world. The poet meditates on our experience and the language of poetry allows dialogue as a free exchange of intimate thoughts.
Clearly, Quintana’s poetry is rich in observational truths. As a great poet, he is the mentor who teaches a way of seeing and feeling. Think of Zorba, the Greek: “Zorba sees everything every day as if it were the first time,” wrote Nikos Kazantzakis in his famous novel. The voluptuousness of living! Great poetry reminds us every time of the importance of living. Quintana’s is hopeful, cheerful, a great wit, gentle and a man of broad interests. The irony reflected is the hallmark of his style. He likes to express his astute vision of things with epigrams such as the following: “The soul is that which asks us if the soul exists.” As a romantic, his main mode of expression is the lyric poem. He is capable of writing a classical sonnet and has the ability to create a free rhythm.
Quintana was born in Alegrete in 1906, in southern Brazil, a small and quiet town near the border with Argentina. His father owned a pharmacy and his mother taught French. During his youth, he studied at the Military Academy of the state capital, Porto Alegre. And after the death of his parents, he moved to that city. A journalist and translator by profession, he lived most of his life in the capital, which he undoubtedly loved. Quintana wrote many books and translated hundreds of novels and short stories from English, French, Spanish, and Italian into Portuguese. His father was a conspirator in the 1923 Revolution. At that time, the family used to speak French in front of the servants and the house.
The sensitive and curious boy grew up in a time called the Belle Époque. As a child, he used to speak French and Spanish in the beautiful mansion where he was born. His mother sang Castilian songs and recited poetry, while his father encouraged him to memorize and recite La Fontaine’s fables in French. The whole family enjoyed the poetry. After the mother’s illness, the family was financially ruined.
At first glance, Quintana’s poetry reveals very little influence from his personal circumstances. A very reserved man, he used to say that his whole life was in his poetry. Although he wrote chronicles and short artistic commentaries for the press, Quintana’s poems are his main contribution to Brazilian literature. Together with Carlos Drummond, Manuel Bandeira, Vinicius de Moraes and Cecília Meireles, he is one of the most beloved poets of his country.
The images are the visual aspects of the poetic message. The predominance of the family scene as a lyrical element is a striking feature of his work. In his compositions he highlights the feeling of life and the tenderness with which he animates the simplest things: clock, portrait, mirror, pencil, little street, house, bedroom, shoes, boats, clouds, etc.
I think that the great poets are like the multicolored fish in Ingeborg Bachmann’s poem: because they come into the world with a “mission of light.” Mario Quintana died in 1994.