My Poetry Corner September 2024 features the poem “intolerance / intolerância” by Brazil’s young poet João Doederlein, writing under the pseudonym @akapoeta, from his bestselling debut poetry collection O Livro dos Ressignificados / The Book of Resignifications, published in 2017.

Born in 1996 in Brasília, the federal capital of Brazil, João began writing poetry at eleven years old. At fourteen, he started his first blog with his own texts. Then, two years later, he created an Instagram account where he began sharing his poems, together with his own illustrations.

While studying Advertising and Publicity at the University of Brasília (2015-2020), Doederlein created the Resignifications project in which he attributes new meanings to words. Based on the personal experiences of his generation, the poet, then nineteen years old, gave more weight to the objectivity of dictionaries with his poetic reinterpretations of nouns (n), adjectives (adj), and verbs (vt). In less than a year, his experiment spread across the internet, gaining thousands of followers on Facebook and Instagram.

In his definition of “resignify (vt),” Doederlein invites his readers to free ourselves from old ways of seeing, being, and doing.

resignify (vt)

it’s to look from the inside out. it’s to find new 
things in what we see every day. it’s to know that 
things change as much as people. it’s to recreate 
what one day was created. it’s the rule itself. it’s 
to know how to deal with the new. it’s to perceive 
that there's a little bit of us in everything we do. 
it’s an exercise in self-knowledge. 

it’s an act of extreme freedom in which we paint 
the world around us the way that we see it.

The poet not only presents his resignification poems in a square format, but also intentionally writes them without capital letters. “I feel that a “larger” letter after a period reinforces the pause and the break in the sentences even more,” @akapoeta said. “I want to convey the sensation of fluidity, the sensation of the sea and its waves.”

Doederlein’s love of words and passion for his work are evident in his resignification of the noun, “poet.” He also indicates that there’s a poet in each one of us.

 poet (n) 

it’s the one who feels for a world of people at the 
same time. it’s the one who exudes intensity. it’s 
the one who overflows with verse. it’s the one who
stains with flavor whatever he touches. it’s the one
who made friends with words. and the best friend
of the verb. it’s everyone who has ventured into 
love. and who sails the seven seas without fear of 
drowning. it’s the one who dives head first. 

it’s the one who has written about his own sadness 
in the notes of a cell phone. It’s the one who takes 
pain and joy to dance.

His social media success gave rise to the 2017 publication of his debut poetry collection, O Livro dos Ressignificados / The Book of Resignifications. The collection became an instant bestseller with over 60,000 copies sold, remaining as the #3 bestselling book in Brazil for over fifteen weeks.

In these times of private sector investments in space travel, @akapoeta’s resignification of the word “astronaut” caught my attention. It’s not only a select few who can aspire to becoming an astronaut. We’re all astronauts as we navigate public spaces, collide with each other, and push beyond our limits to achieve the impossible.

astronaut (n)

it’s the one who gets where he wants to go. or the one
who escapes life’s routines to find oneself. it’s the one 
who knows that we are ourselves travelers in orbit of 
the cities in which we live and that, sometimes, hearts 
collide with each other. other times, it’s feeling alone 
in the world. it’s when we perceive that we’re not the 
only planet seeking a place in the sun. 

it’s the one, when he heard that the sky was the limit, 
stepped on the moon.

The featured resignification poem “intolerance” defines well where we are today as a nation in allowing our discomfort to transform into hate, violence, and pain when faced with others who differ from us.

intolerance (n)
 
it's when you get too bothered by the way he dresses 
and who he loves, for whom she prays to and for 
whom they don't pray to. it's when the discomfort 
turns into violence (and not all violent acts are 
physical). it happens at home. it happens at the 
metro station. it's the weed at the foot of love. it's 
a heart incapable of embracing. daughter of hate. 

it's the word whose meaning only brings pain.

To read the featured poem “intolerance / intolerância” in the original Portuguese, and to learn more about João Doederlein @akapoeta and his work, go to my Poetry Corner September 2024.