My Poetry Corner March 2024 features the poem “Certainties / Certezas” by Brazilian poet, writer, and translator Mário Quintana (1906-1994). Known as the poet of “simple things,” Quintana shares his beliefs on love and friendship for making our lives worthwhile. Though unable to determine the publication date of this poem, I get the sense that it was written at a later stage in his life. In a change to my normal presentation, I intersperse excerpts of this poem with the poet’s lifelong journey to becoming a beloved and acclaimed poet in his state and across Brazil.

I don’t want someone who dies of love for me…
I just need someone who lives for me, who wants to be with me, hugging me.

Born in the municipality of Alegrete in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, Quintana was the third child: a son of a pharmacist and grandson of doctors. At the age of seven, with the help of his parents, he learned to read using the local newspaper as a primer. His parents also initiated his studies in French and Spanish. After he completed elementary school in his hometown, his father enrolled him as a boarding student at the Military College in the state capital, Porto Alegre.

I don’t demand that someone loves me like I love them, I just want them to love me, no matter with what intensity.
I don’t assume that everyone I like likes me…

The thirteen-year-old Mário did not do well in some subjects like algebra, geometry, and geography. His interests lay in Russian, French, and European literature. Disappointed in his poor performance, his father pulled him out of the college after three years. After leaving college in 1924, without a diploma, he started working at a bookstore when his father called him back home to join the family’s pharmacy. His father wanted him to become a doctor…not a poet.

Life changed for twenty-year-old Mário when his mother died in 1926, and then his father in the following year.

Even if I miss them, the important thing for me is to know that, at some moment, I was irreplaceable…
And that that moment will be unforgettable…

The young Mário did not abandon his dream to become a writer, causing constant friction with his father. In 1927, before his father passed away, he won an award for his short story submission in a competition promoted by the newspaper Diário de Notícias in Porto Alegre. That same year, Revista Para Todas in Rio de Janeiro published one of his poems. I imagine that this success was not enough to put his father’s mind at rest on his deathbed.

I just want my feelings to be valued.
I want to be able to always have a smile on my face, even when the situation is not very cheerful…
And that my smile could convey peace to those around me.

In his poem “Of Utopia” from his poetry collection Magic Mirror (1951), Quintana shares his optimism for pushing forward: If things are unattainable… well! / It’s no reason not to want them… / How sad the pathways, if not for / The magical presence of the stars!

Freed at last to choose his own pathway, Quintana returned to Porto Alegre in 1929 to pursue a career in writing. He found work writing and translating articles for newspapers and renowned magazines. And then, in 1934, a whole new world opened for him with his first book length, literary translation for the publishing company Editora Globo. His early fascination for foreign literature and languages had borne fruit. More translations followed, including works by Maupassant, Voltaire, Virginia Woolf, Huxley, Proust, and Balzac. For the young poet, who had failed to complete college, his translations not only earned him prestige, but also provided him with a profound literary knowledge that enriched his poetry.

I don’t want to fight with the world, but if this should happen one day, I want to have enough strength to show the world that love exists…
That we are superior to hatred and rancor, and that there’s no victory without humility and peace.

Under pressure from friends, he compiled thirty-five untitled sonnets for his first book of poetry, The Street of Windmills, published in 1940. Over the next fifty years, he published sixteen more poetry collections. Recognition from the Brazilian Academy of Letters did not come until 1966, following the publication of Poetic Anthology, a collection of sixty poems, to commemorate his sixtieth birthday. That year, his collection won the Brazilian Union of Writers’ Fernando Chinaglia Prize for best book of the year.

In the early 1970s, his fame and popularity grew in Porto Alegre. On his seventieth birthday, he received one of the highest distinctions from the government of Rio Grande do Sul. More accolades followed, including the title of Honorary Doctorate from two state universities, culminating in 1980 with the Machado de Assis Award from the Brazilian Academy of Letters for the body of his work.

I want to believe that even if I should fail today, tomorrow will be another day, and if I don’t give up on my dreams and goals, maybe I would be successful and completely happy.  

The self-described “quiet and introspective” poet received praise and adulation with the modesty of one “so proud that I don’t think I’ve ever written anything to my liking. Because poetry is dissatisfaction, a yearning for self-improvement. A satisfied poet doesn’t satisfy.” (Excerpts from his brief autobiography published in the magazine Isto É in 1984).

Though known for courting women, Quintana remained a bachelor all his life. For most of his life, the simple and reserved poet lived alone in hotels and guesthouses. The Hotel Majestic in the city center of Porto Alegre, where he stayed from 1968 to 1980, was transformed into the Casa de Cultura Mário Quintana in 1983.

I want, one day, to be able to tell others that nothing was in vain…
That love exists, that it’s worthwhile to share friendship with people, that life is indeed beautiful, and that I always gave my best…and that it was worth it.

The poet passed away on May 5, 1994, in Porto Alegre, the city he chose as his home, and which consecrated him.

To read the complete featured poem “Certainties / Certezas” in English and its original Portuguese, and to learn more about Mário Quintana’s work and awards, go to my Poetry Corner March 2024.