Perolina Souza TELES; Elder Silva CORREIA and Fabio ZOBOLI
RPGE – Revista on line de Política e Gestão Educacional, Araraquara, v. 28, n. 00, e023021, 2024. e-ISSN: 1519-9029
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22633/rpge.v28i00.19485 9
lyrical figures in Brazilian football, we have chosen the poet who defines poetry as “The honey
of words” (Barros, 2010, p. 370, our translation).
Thus, we enlist for this dialogue the distinguished member of the Brazilian poets’
selection, Manoel Wenceslau Leite de Barros, born in Cuiabá in December 1916. Throughout
his life, Manoel, together with his wife, Stella Leite, had three children and passed away in
Campo Grande at the age of 97 in 2014. His childhood, which permeates his verses, was spent
in the Pantanal, where his father, João Venceslau Barros, owned property. In his youth, he
moved to the capital of his home state to study at a boarding school and later to Rio de Janeiro,
where he studied Law and joined the Communist Party. Although he distanced himself from
party activism, Manoel de Barros never severed his connection to communist principles, turning
this ideology into a guiding force in his life. As he himself wrote: “Hunger is not a communist
invention, uncle” (Barros, 2010, p. 30, our translation).
With this work, Manoel de Barros began the publication of his poetry and reflections,
which largely focused on everyday elements and intimate observations of nature. His writing,
though often colloquial, stood out for its avant-garde approach, valuing the ordinary and
creating neologisms around the trivial. This accomplishment, though complex, was presented
by Manoel in an accessible and unpretentious manner. He himself stated that, regarding
nothingness, he had profound insights. “I am a picker of waste: I love leftovers like good flies.
I wanted my voice to have the shape of a song. Because I do not belong to information
technology: I belong to inventionology. I only use words to compose my silences” (Barros,
2024, our translation).
Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira was born in Belém do Pará,
but as a child, he moved with his family to Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo. His name, Sócrates, was
chosen by his father, a lover of philosophy and literature, who paid homage to one of his favorite
philosophers. Under the influence of letters, Sócrates’ father believed that “From the
perspective of being an insect, man might better understand metaphysics” (Barros, 2010, p. 323,
our translation). In 1964, following the military coup, Sócrates, then only 10 years old,
witnessed his father setting fire to his beloved books, an event that would deeply mark his life.
As he later reflected: “I am many shattered people” (Barros, 2010, p. 313, our translation). This
episode contributed to Sócrates developing a passion for literary works, using them to fuel his
thirst for knowledge and freedom. “Who walks the track is an iron train. I am water running
between stones: — freedom finds a way” (Barros, 2010, p. 156, our translation).