The Celibate Machines of Herberto Helder

Abstract

There are many machines in Herberto Helder’s poetry. Verbal, corporal, magical machines, which, mainly, stand out in this work because of their astonishing gratuitouness. Useless machines, which in their refusal of practical functions, resemble monstrous objects, revealing, then, a deep affinity with the poetic as a sacred manifestation. In this article, we would like to discuss two problems in Herberto Helder’s work: 1) the intersection between poetic making and mechanical action, considering both practices from the point of view of dysfunctionality; 2) the unprecedented relationship between Herberto’s lyrical machine and the hierophanic manifestation. In the end, we will deal with the question of how the notion of God, in Herberto Helder’s work, can be linked, not to the ultimate reason of all things, but rather to unreason and the loss of meaning, aspects not entirely foreign to his poetic.