Poetry in transit

Abstract

The contemporary poet’s relationship with the big city radicalized Baudelaire´s first perceptions. Instead of being a flâneur, the urban spectator passes by the traffic, on foot or by car, and sees the other people from a faster perspective, as an exacerbation of the sudden fulgurations of the XIXth century wanderer. Poems by José Paulo Paes, Sebastião Uchoa Leite and Ana Cristina César were selected because deal with this fortuitous meeting with a wider sense of time amidst displacement, as a sign of the possible “aura” still experienced by the passerby. Although the poet also moves swiftly, there is a widening of scope – an insight that knocks out the lyrical subject (as it is noticed by Cortázar when he connects car, gun and photography to poetry and short story). The means of transportation can be metaphors of life in nowadays metropolis, symbolizing aspects of the fleeting experiences saved by the poet’s witness, which we as readers can share.