Poetic metamorphoses or the “essential fidelity”

Abstract

Helder Macedo gathered his poems under the title Poemas novos e velhos, in the reverse order in which the “old poems” were produced, so that the “new” ones are the first to appear in the collection. This unusual arrangement followed a rigorous intention that predisposes the reader to doubt the origins and to find, through the recurrence of themes, motifs and an insistently reused vocabulary selection, a rigor of thought and a semantic coherence that denote “essential fidelity” of a poet who searched and found his words. A range of textual and musical references enter the composition of the poems, such as transformed quotations. The intended reading here is to surprise the metamorphoses of allusions, quotations and musical structures in Helder Macedo’s poetic production that harmonizes, in new and original diction, the old themes: life, death, love and singing.