Routes of a poetics of residues in Carolina Maria de Jesus's work

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss the tension caused by the discursive variety in Carolina Maria de Jesus diary/novel/report Quarto de despejo [Child of the Dark]. We believe that there is a mixture of many deterritorialized literary styles, which activates a “escaping line” that goes beyond the canonical writings. This is an essential characteristic of the art produced in countries that have a hybrid culture. We also notice the presence of a rhyzomatic potency that consists in the reestablishment of poetic elements, the deformation of their residues. We notice that the writer not only recycled garbage to earn her living, she did the same with her poetic discourse. She innovates by trying to manage and consequently recriate, in her writing, the senses of our social system, doing so in an intuitive manner, since she did not have a literary project like traditional writers.